Promoting and Monitoring Cognitive Engagement of Online Students in Blended Synchronous Learning
Abstract: Blended synchronous learning has the potential to enable some students to join classroom instruction at geographically separated places. However, research indicates that the engagement level of the online students are often not as high as the classroom students. The purpose of this paper is to summarize the strategies that are used to promote and monitor cognitive engagement of the online students. The strategies for promoting cognitive engagement include i) motivating students, ii) designing authentic learning tasks, iii) energizing instructors, iv) increasing interactions, and v) adopting continuous e-assessment. The strategies for monitoring cognitive engagement include i) self-report, ii) experience sampling, and iii) teacher observations. These strategies will be tested out in a proposed study using the blended synchronous learning approach by following the design-based research method and a set of workable strategies will be gradually refined and suggested for teachers who are interested in using this approach.
Presider: Qiyun Wang, NIE