Online Interactions
Three Types of Learner Interactions in an Online Course
- learner-content interaction
- learner-instructor interaction
- learner-learner interaction
Your online instructors will help you to facilitate "learner-content and learner-instructor interaction" by keeping a balance between presenting packaged instructional materials to you and by interacting with you to assist you with relating new information to your own personal knowledge. They will further help you to respond to your application of new knowledge. In order to better promoting interaction between you and instructional content and interaction between your instructors and you, your distance education instructors are suggested to be "empathetic (Moore & Kearsley, 2005, p136)" to understand your personalities, to identify your needs, as well as to perceive your emotions so that instructors will be able to guide, to support, and to encourage your involvements in various forms of interactions and participation in distance education learning.
"Leaner-learner interaction" is the third distinct type of interaction in online courses. This kind of interaction is typically conducted via uses of different communication technologies, such as shared documents, teleconferences, videoconferences, web conferences, and threaded forum discussions embedded in learning management systems. You should try to interact with your peers by keeping discussion topics on track, relating discussions to particular instructional components, providing insightful comments to provoke deeper understanding and interpretation of the course content, as well as maintaining group harmony.
