MAKING THE CONNECTION: USING SYNCHRONOUS MEETINGS TO CREATE A MORE MEANINGFUL ONLINE LEARNING EXPERIENCE FOR STUDENTS

The ever-changing information landscape offers enormous opportunities for educators to create a meaningful learning experience for students in online and hybrid (partially online) courses. Educators and their students face many challenges in the online teaching environment, most significantly in terms of the quality of the learning experience. There is a lack of empirical evidence regarding instructional strategies proven effective in the synchronous online educational environment. Even as synchronous web-based learning environments become more widely used and sophisticated, research in this area lags. To address this issue, an online survey was distributed to more than fifty Library and Information Science students from Mar 4-12, 2010 in order to understand their overall learning experiences in a synchronous environment. The preliminary findings suggest that students are very appreciative of the synchronous component of their hybrid courses (utilizing the asynchronous features of an online learning management system combined with two face-to-face weekend intensive meetings during the semester). The research findings have implications for instructional strategies in online learning in higher education, in that they seem to point to the positive impact of synchronous dialogue. Instructors can use synchronous technology to create a meaningful learning experience by facilitating discussion, providing feedback and building a social presence supported by effective technological backup.