By Tina Nazerian, EdSurge
Deanna Marcum, one of the lead researchers, says the finding that she found the most “puzzling” was that the “instructors were quite worried about student engagement, but the students didn’t seem to be worried about student engagement.” Musselman says in some ways, student engagement in his online course was “more robust” than when he teaches in person. His students had to respond to detailed prompts, for one thing, and they knew how he’d be evaluating their responses. And writing out answers later rather than answering in the spur of the moment in class gave students time to ponder their answers. “Some of that was really rich, and I think it was because they were sitting down five days later in full view in a written form to capture their thoughts,” he explains. But Musselman says the online discussion format meant losing certain nuances that face-to-face classes have, such as being able to see a student’s “furrowed brow.”
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