4.1. Course Management: Interaction Planning

1. Interaction: Why?

illustration of four people looking out of windows from their apartments next to each other, One of the major concerns students have about online courses is that they’ll be made to teach themselves from provided materials. Even courses with plenty of context and personalized content – video or written lectures from the instructor, for instance – can feel like they’re built for students to work through on their own. This is one of the reasons that consciously constructing interaction in your course will beneficial.

The fifth section of the OSCQR standards centers on interaction. Those standards reflect research that recommends opportunity for interaction be woven into the course from the start, allowing students to get to know their instructor, to know that they’re learning beside others, and to have a chance to contribute to the content in the course from their own diverse experience. This dovetails well with the call for “humanizing” online courses, started by Michelle Pacansky-Brock, that the California Online Education Initiative have supported.

Courses typically support three kinds of interaction: between the student and the content, between students, and between the student and the instructor. We'll briefly review all three kinds here.