In my opinion, Diversify Learning Materials like live video lectures, video and audio media, and online tools allow students to interact in virtual learning environments in multiple ways to improve poor interaction between instructors and students.

Most certainly, Amine Moulay . The role of the instructor and the instructor's preference for learning theory certainly influence learner engagement. There are certainly other ways to engage, though my particular area of interest is designing for engagement through asynchronous discussions.

The real question is how are you defining engagement? If there is a lack of student engagement, what are you looking for that you aren't seeing? Knowing your goal (i.e., how you define engagement) is the first step in building a map to get there.

Cheers,

Barbara

In my opinion, in the first place, the instructor needs to understand the reason why the students' disengagement in virtual learning platforms? Do they have all the required essential such as a computer or gadget and network connection? If the primary need can not fulfil then no matter how interactive your virtual learning platforms still they unable to access.

Once you managed to identify all basic needs fulfilled, then please consider what information/teaching/knowledge that you plan to deliver? How long will it take? What age group your students? How long they able to stay focus? (if they unable to focus too long, try to make a short duration in term of knowledge deliver, add more in Q&A sessions perhaps) What reward will they get besides knowledge/information? (Maybe you can consider such as having quiz after the learning sessions, but depending on the content of your teaching because if too heavy then I will suggest doing the teaching session separately into a few session, before ending give them a quiz to check their understanding, around two weeks or after the end of the main topic try making some online test to double-check their learning progress)

Lastly, please do always put yourself in your students' position and ask their feedback or suggestion to enhance among their peer interest (maybe using simple questionnaires) each time end of a session. Learning engagement only will happen when instructor and learner always have something interesting that able to make them felt anxiety, happy, excited, adventure and fun.

I'm sure all instructor know how to punish or scold students when they are doing wrong, But please do remember to double up your compliment too!

(please ignore my opinion, if you felt these not fit with your situation!)

All the best!

In my opinion, Diversify Learning Materials like live video lectures, video and audio media, and online tools allow students to interact in virtual learning environments in multiple ways to improve poor interaction between instructors and students.

It's completely false to believe that remote learning can success just by resolving the technological issue. The virtual learning is a complex process which include many dimensions, in addition of the technological one: psychological, social, and pedagogical above all. This is this dimension that the instructor (teacher) has to master if we want to achieve the quality of virtual learning. And linked to this dimension I can say that the theory of knowledge is the thing to avoid, and replacing it by the competency-based approach. If not the remote learning will be a just a broadcasting of videos where the student is a passive receptor.

You can read my paper about the impact of covid-19 on education:

Article The repercussions of Covid-19 On the field of education

I believe that communication management is the most important issue in all distance learning ways to deliver education. Technology device, networks and support are needed, but they are not enough. Another important issue is how the teacher can organize materials and resources, and how his/her institution can endeavour this task.

And the student expectations are important too. Is different in online students, who know, or, at least assume, that online and electronic resources are their resourses to study, than in face-to-face students, mainly if they had to do a sudden change in their way to get instruction, like in actual lockdown in many places.

As most of you're valuable comments have well highlighted, I do agree about the existence of multiple tools to overcome the disengagement issue during the virtual learning platforms. Also, having a clear ontological and epistemological position on what students' disengagement aspects we're focusing on are crucial! Personally, I just believe (for now!) that among all these tools, the theory of knowledge aspect is the missing one! which is about “How our students acquire knowledge?”. In this regard, according to Plato’s theory of knowledge “ knowledge is acquired not through the senses or as information conveyed from one mind to another by teaching” but it is about the recollection of multiple realities and variables in the mind of the learner, through unfolding them in a way to allow learners seeing the full picture.

Honestly, I believe most of the instructors are ignoring this crucial aspect of teaching!

I Agree With Huey Shia Teo

I agree with Huey Shia Teo too! Is very important to show empathy and supportive attitude to the students.

Following.

The instructor should create the environment for students to contribute in an online setting. This involves anking and probing questions that would prompt students to participate in a discussion.

I agree with @Amine Moulay

Article Understanding student engagement in online learning environm...

I think comunication skills are very important. A good instructor can know exactly what to say in order to elicit better motivation and get better performance.

Amine:

In short no! In the 10 plus years, I have been teaching online the disengagement is sometimes connected to the lack of time management and organizational skills of the learner regardless of how much communication there is between the learner and facilitator. Also, I think there is a misconception regarding the "ease" of online classes and what it takes to successfully complete them.

As Doris Yates said, self-direction and self-regulation are the key from students. Organisation in goals, materials and activity designs is the key from teachers. Communication in the key to strenghten the bonds between teachers and students. And organisational and IT support is the key from management in education institutions, to make it work. It takes time, years, to get all of this working properly and in a well-coordinated way.

Y con lo que dices, Aline Monsisvais

I think disengagement of students in participating in virtual learning platform is due to the fact that teachers are not giving challenging and interesting learning activities. The physical absence of a teacher while learning is unfolding is a big factor too, that if a teacher fails to come up with simple and clear instructions on what exactly to do in the virtual learning environment then learning is compromise. I think teachers has to develop a mechanisms that will address these limitations.

file:///C:/Users/hp/Downloads/Student_Engagement_Sarder.pdf

Raynor:

Regardless of how much engagement there is, the integration of "interesting activities" in the online learning environment, there are those that will disengage. An example, there was a student that disengaged after the transition to the online environment, which was seven weeks of non-participation. The grading pattern was changed therefore the work completed prior to the transition garnered the student enough points to get a passing grade.

I am not sure that having challenging and interesting activities will be the entire answer to the notion of disengagement. As has been mentioned before, it is the commitment of the learner and their organizational and time management skills, along with their will to be flexible and embrace the new abnormal!

It’s been a challenge to develop blended learning resources to teach oral health sciences across 3 campuses including use of visiting speakers at the university of the Highlands and Islands in Scotland, but students have engaged to an extraordinary extent and the pressure to create imaginative solutions is proving to be fruitful with good (and constructive) feedback from students.

It is essential to make the sessions interactive to enhance engagement. Also, you may give reading material before the lecture. Then you use the time of the lecture to deepen understanding,

I agree very much with Samy. Giving students reading, references, guidance on searching literature and, using discussion boards and peer tasks to feed back To the group using peer teaching, voiced presentations and VC sessions to moderate and consolidate can lead to much greater depth and breadth of learning and reflection Than the traditional lecture / tutorial based approach Along with constructive alignment to learning outcomes and feedback to the students on their communication, teamwork and critical reflection skills..... can be a very powerful blend Of learning. Ensuring the engagement of all can be a challenge and establishing and maintaining a community of learners who are mutually supportive takes some judgement and interaction from the tutor(s).

https://engagevr.io/?gclid=CjwKCAjwk6P2BRAIEiwAfVJ0rIVB7JGjDXFbPATs-k4WoWoKY6rFpOXofG4b5OEfy37AFbgwsfFIGRoCxXcQAvD_BwE

Samy Azer, Nice Contribution.

A very important note dear Amine.

I agree with Dr. Raynor Ereje.

Using a brief graded review quiz at the beginning of the virtual session can help to keep students engaged and abreast of the course content. It will also place less pressure on the instructor to have to prompt students to recall the previous material before moving on to the new material.

Here's resource article of how it works in the F2F classroom:

Article Peer Review of Classroom Teaching: Addressing Student, Lectu...

Best,

Debra

The lack of commitment may be due both to a lack of support for the students in question and to a high risk of isolation. It seems that encouraging students to interact with each other also increases their commitment to the virtual learning process.

Some interesting responses. When the changes occurred some students were already accustomed to blended learning to a degree but its not necessarily enjoying it. Catering for students needs includes acquisition of subject knowledge, variations in the style of delivery and incorporating strategies for involving the disengaged such as peer teaching and as mentioned above pre-reading in preparation for sessions. Its worthwhile using evaluation tools for example simple surveys to get student feedback on what works or doesn't for them in this situation compared to before. The data can then be used to guide planning for future sessions. Those students who are disengaged in the new situation may well have been disengaged previously but are more in the spotlight now.

Initially, students should be encouraged to participate in e-learning platforms and raise their awareness of this, then develop communication skills with them.

Very good point from Maryam Sani about students who were disengaged previously, but remained under the radar.

Taylor, James C. (2002) Teaching and learning online: the workers, the lurkers and the shirkers. In: CRIDALA 2002: 2nd Conference on Research in Distance and Adult Learning in Asia, 5-7 Jun 2002

Can there be a functional balance of “workers, lurkers and shirkers” and indeed would a cohort consisting of all “workers” function Optimally or at all?

Perhaps these roles shift between learners as they engage at different times to different degrees to different elements of a course

Perhap a measure of “legitimate peripheral participation” is quite normal and workable?

Virtual learning environments provide flexibility, adaptability, and accessibility, making them ideal for people with hectic extracurricular schedules, busy careers, or unpredictable life circumstances.

A side-effect of virtual classrooms is the lack of face-to-face interaction between students and instructors. This may leave instructors wondering if their students feel supported, if their online curriculum is best serving the learning objectives, and whether students are truly engaged or not.

Dear Dr. Amine Moulay ,

Here are many tips for improving student engagement in your virtual classroom.

Abdelkader Mohamed Elsayed:

As one that has taught online for just over 10 years, breaking the ice is a good idea. When I start a new class I have students respond to bio questions and sentence stems/starters! The information is posted on the course discussion board which allows for interaction with their classmates. The word limits are set so that students don't give us the history of their lives, they have from the first day of the term until the first weekend to respond. As the term progresses we

get some insights into who is in class via other discussion boards.

As far as learning by doing, the students have a group presentation they do which of course is a challenge because they are REQUIRED to use the group discussion board and file exchange of Blackboard. The challenge is that neither gives the instant gratification that the students want because they don't get a "bing" on their phones that there is a message and they actually have to check the discussion board. Most adapt well, but there are those that refuse to abide by the restrictions and eventually suffer the consequences because their presentation oftentimes fails to meet the criteria.

Doris

Learners are at home with electronic gadget, thus he/she requires appropriate information beforehand on the session to be conducted. Thus it is the responsibility for the instructor to take the first step in providing the lesson material. Technology of course supports and our duty also to ensure the student has the updated gadget.

Dear scholars, many thanks for your valuable contribution to enrich this exciting debate. The sparkle of this question started from the fact that among the tripartite elements influencing students’ engagement in the virtual learning platforms, that is, the students, technology, and the instructor, lecturers received little emphasis in the virtual learning debate. In this regard, I do agree with Hermann Gruenwald that the instructor's skills to convey knowledge online should be questioned and always upgraded. Once again thank you all for this exciting debate.

The most unreasonable approach is to transfer the experience of traditional education to the online process, an attempt to imitate a “live” educational process.

In my opinion, the main thing in the methodology of online learning is the joint activity of students and teachers, and the main role of a teacher is the moderation of joint activities.

This approach ensures the continuity of the educational process and allows you to "keep in good shape" all participants.

Today the experience of online moderation is clearly insufficient. When enough experience is accumulated, it will be possible to form AI moderators on its basis.

Yes indeed Vladimir Rotkin , the joint activity is a crucial aspect of the online learning activity. I definitely agree. To this respect, I personally believe that Interaction between the instructor and students, and between students themselves in the e-learning platform is to some extent.... more important than the course content itself (with some exaggeration). If low interaction in the traditional face to face classes can be acceptable, in the e-learning platform high level of interaction is just vital.... (in my opinion).

I don't know how it works in other countries, but in Ukraine low students' engagement is the result of big distance between learning and working, student's don't feel that this knowledge will help them in some way, so they become low motivated. And distance between teacher and student, situation of student's studying (more relaxed, at home, with a lot of distractors) just make 'symptoms' more clear. So communicational skills, theory of knowledge will not help, when the reason is in quality of information that is given. If they don't need it -they will not accept it even if you will jump with drums. Love can't be forced :)

Sorry to hear the pessimistic point of view of Kateryna Malofeikina on the remote learning process! To some extent, it is true what you're saying, but in that case, there is no need to blame the e-learning platforms as it would be the same outcome of disengagement from the traditional face to face learning. Here I think Kateryna Malofeikina is talking about another subject which is related to the effectiveness of the curricula itself!

Kateryna Malofeikina and Amine Moulay: Being a 10 year plus veteran of online teaching the disengagement can be how the courses are designed.

At the beginning of each term, I ask students about their online experiences and often I get that they just read materials and answer a set of questions with limited to no engagement with the instructor or classmates. This limited engagement may be what is creating the distance between the students and the facilitator. I am engaged with students from the beginning and usually get good participation. I do realize that there are those that go through the motions to get the course completed and have limited engagement in the course. Those are the ones that typically do not do well at the end of the term. During the summer term out of a class of 27, I had five that received a zero (F) for participation. Regardless of the efforts on the part of the facilitator/teacher/professor, there are those that will do the minimum and you can not fault yourself for their failure and lack of effort.

All the best!