Abstract:

While online university experiences and courses are beneficial for some students, many others struggle with persistence to graduation, leaving universities with notoriously low retention and graduation rates, lower than traditional face-to-face, on-ground universities (Bloemer, et al. 2018; Mulijana & Luo, 2019). Therefore, interventions that are pointedly created to support students’ learning and persistence are essential to student success, and university success (Bloemer, et al., 2018; Tinto, 2017). Stephen and Rockinson-Szapkiw (2021) appeal to universities to proactively create interventions that support deep learning and can translate into persistence to graduation. While universities continue to develop initiatives to support high-impact practices (HIPs) in online education, research is still scant on how these initiatives support deep learning (Kuep and Young, 2018).

To create targeted learning support, University of Arizona Global Campus (UAGC) has implemented required Live Learning in one of our beginning general education courses. This workshop will lead participants through think-alouds and problem solving of how to build belonging with the university, as well as teach targeted research skills via synchronous teaching and learning sessions. Currently, Live Learning (LL) is optional, except for Information Literacy, a general education course taken by approximately 40% of freshman. LL is now gaining traction as a viable alternative to solely asynchronous teaching and learning. However, to better plan for student needs and course revisions, an understanding of how students react to these sessions, as part of the First Year Experience High Impact Practices (Kuh, 2008), is crucial. Without understanding this information, we run the risk of not adapting our sessions to meet the needs of our students and not supporting their persistence to graduation.

Information Literacy, as part of the general education sequence at a large online university, has traditionally been a completely asynchronous course (as most courses at this university are). However, with a redesign of the course, embedded orientation and LL were added as requirements for students. Embedded orientation is mentioned in conjunction with LL because LL teaches students how to use the online library to complete assignments, and how-to-use-the-library modules were traditionally housed in an orientation course. When the decision was made to embed orientation into general education courses to overtly demonstrate the connections between university resources and course progression, LL and the library became a common objective.

This qualitative case study will share the themes and patterns that emerged from students’ voices through the triangulation of three data points:
1) Zoom chat during LL,
2) post LL student surveys, and
3) a question required on the final project in the course.

A question and answer period will allow attendees to provide suggestions and have questions answered about future iterations of LL. Conclusions will also offer suggestions for what research still need undertaken.

Keywords:

Synchronous teaching and learning, online higher education, online courses, first-year experience.