Online teaching due to COVID-19 in 2020 meant that chances of poor student engagement and interaction if not delivered appropriately. Recognising this early, I delivered the course in a manner that would best suit remote online learning.

• The first change I brought was releasing pre-recorded theory lectures in four fortnightly blocks based on different themes. The lecture blocks were followed by summative online quizzes, which encouraged students to keep pace through the block of lectures and reflect on their content.
• The second change was introducing interactive fortnightly online webinars through Blackboard Collaborate to discuss theoretical concepts in the presence of other experts in the field. Such a student -centred course design, with interactive and engagement elements has been shown to be an effective online teaching strategy.

Student engagement was fostered throughout the webinar sessions by discussing clinically relevant cases, online polls and addressing students’ queries.

Indicative standard: Assessment tasks are well designed to assess the intended learning outcome

Evidence: Term-end anonymous survey

However, in 2020, peer-to-peer interaction was identified as a challenge an online environment. Since purposefully structured online discussion forums are potentially engaging (Darabi et al. 2013) I used this strategy to maximise student engagement in 2021. I launched four summative Moodle discussion forums, with each forum discussing one lecture block in the course. I used four-questions technique to enhance critical thinking as proposed by Alexander et al. (2010). The felt part of community increased to 5.60/6 in 2021 (5.03/6 in 2020), well above school (4.9/6), faculty (5/6) and university averages (4.96/6).

As shown in the chart, 86% of the respondents (n=46, total enrolled in the course=77); said that online discussion forums enhanced their learning.

References:

Darabi, A., Liang, X., Suryavanshi, R., & Yurekli, H. (2013). Effectiveness of online discussion strategies: A meta-analysis. American journal of distance education, 27(4), 228-241.

Alexander, M. E., Commander, N., Greenberg, D., & Ward, T. (2010). Using the four-questions technique to enhance critical thinking in online discussions. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 6(2), 409-415.