"He's Lazy! He's a Control Freak!": Utilizing Interpersonal Communication Theories to Improve Learning Dynamics in the Asynchronous Online Classroom
Abstract
For this poster presentation, I will discuss the importance of taking individual student's interpersonal communication preferences into account when facilitating asynchronous online course environments. These recommendations are based on applying interpersonal, small group, and computer mediated communication theories during my six years of teaching over fifty online courses with diverse, nontraditional, and adult learners.
Within my first year of teaching for an online university, I began to notice that individual student preferences for styles, type, and timing of communication differed drastically, and these differences were causing interpersonal conflict within the online classroom. With their contact limited to the online setting, students were using minimal interactions, primarily based on communication preferences, to make erroneous personal attributions about their classmates. Once these attributions were made, such as, "He's lazy," or "He's a control freak," they served as a barrier to effective communication for the entire classroom. These communication patterns negatively affect student's learning, development of class community, individual and group success, and retention rates.
This poster will offer multiple easy-to-implement tips for managing communication preferences within the online classroom to make course material more accessible, student experience more enjoyable, and the community dynamics more synergized.
Location
Room 1002
Recommended Citation
Cunill, Mary Lee, ""He's Lazy! He's a Control Freak!": Utilizing Interpersonal Communication Theories to Improve Learning Dynamics in the Asynchronous Online Classroom" (2015). SoTL Commons Conference. 111.
https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/sotlcommons/SoTL/2015/111
"He's Lazy! He's a Control Freak!": Utilizing Interpersonal Communication Theories to Improve Learning Dynamics in the Asynchronous Online Classroom
Room 1002
For this poster presentation, I will discuss the importance of taking individual student's interpersonal communication preferences into account when facilitating asynchronous online course environments. These recommendations are based on applying interpersonal, small group, and computer mediated communication theories during my six years of teaching over fifty online courses with diverse, nontraditional, and adult learners.
Within my first year of teaching for an online university, I began to notice that individual student preferences for styles, type, and timing of communication differed drastically, and these differences were causing interpersonal conflict within the online classroom. With their contact limited to the online setting, students were using minimal interactions, primarily based on communication preferences, to make erroneous personal attributions about their classmates. Once these attributions were made, such as, "He's lazy," or "He's a control freak," they served as a barrier to effective communication for the entire classroom. These communication patterns negatively affect student's learning, development of class community, individual and group success, and retention rates.
This poster will offer multiple easy-to-implement tips for managing communication preferences within the online classroom to make course material more accessible, student experience more enjoyable, and the community dynamics more synergized.
