Abstract:

To ensure the persistence of online first-year students, universities need to develop systems to bridge transactional distance and include high-impact solutions. Live learning (or synchronous learning) is one strategy that provides an avenue for otherwise 100% online students and faculty to meet (narrow transactional distance), develop foundation skills (just-in-time interventions), and ask questions in real time about important concepts. Recently, at one large online university, live (synchronous) learning sessions have been added as a requirement in some general education courses. Presently, university data show a significant difference in persistence and retention between students who attend the required live learning sessions via Zoom and those who do not. However, there remained a need to assess and track the difference between students who watched a recording of the live learning and those who attended live sessions to understand this initiative's full impact. While there are some gains for those who watch the same content via a recording, overwhelmingly, the data shows that attending the live (synchronous) sessions via Zoom has the most significant impact on students' success, persistence, and retention. This presentation will share the study that delivered these findings, the next steps for students, faculty, and the university, and the research still needed to fully understand the impact of live sessions in otherwise fully online university programs.

Keywords:

Synchronous learning, online learning, video lectures, persistence, retention.