Peer communication can increase student retention, increase engagement, and build a sense of community in a course. There are various activities you can design to facilitate students’ communication with each other. These activities include unstructured discussion boards, prompted discussion boards, online study groups, group assignments, live webcasts, video lecture tagging, video assignments, photo assignments, and more!
- Recognize the importance of fostering student-to-student communication.
- Select appropriate communication activities for an online course.
- Design different learning activities to facilitate student interaction.
LISTEN TO THEIR EXPERIENCES
- The 7 Cs of effective communication in your online course: https://www.onlinecollege.org/2011/09/16/the-7-cs-of-effective-communication-in-your-online-course/
- Dennen, V. (2005). Designing peer feedback opportunities into online learning experiences. 19th Proceedings of the Annual Conference on Distance Teaching and Learning: https://www.uwex.edu/disted/conference/Resource_library/proceedings/03_02.pdf
- Creating effective peer learning environments in online courses: https://www.slideshare.net/svishal2001/peer-learning-21staug2012