Project: AXIA Healthcare
March 8, 2022
Georgia Institute of Technology
May 6, 2022
Recipient of the 2021-2022 Best Digital Media Master’s Project Award.
During my second year as a Master’s candidate at Georgia Tech, I began work on my Master’s project. The genesis of this project was the research study, Alone Together, which I worked on with two Georgia Tech professors, Dr. Anne Sullivan and Dr. Laura Levy. That initial study was conducted from January 2021 through April 2021 and sought to produce timely knowledge on platforms and practices that better supported student course engagement and feelings of connectedness during remote education.
I decided to continue this research as my Master’s project by attempting to answer the research question: What are some guidelines that can be used by educational systems to help design an effective and positive learning environment for students during Emergency Remote Learning?
Guidelines for Designing an Effective and Positive Emergency Remote Learning Environment for College Students
1. Revisit topics brought up in icebreakers throughout the semester. A focus on positive aspects of students’ lives can help set the tone for classes.
My research shows that many times generic icebreakers miss the mark and that basic ones such as a student sharing their name, area of study and a fun fact or playing “Two Truths and a Lie” were prolific, but not generally seen as helpful. Some instructors attempted to be more creative by putting students in small breakout rooms, but the exercises remained the same and as noted by one student: “It wasn’t anything particularly novel or enjoyable”.
Some participants had the same instructor for several classes and the “Celebrations” icebreaker performed in these classes received the highest positive feedback of any icebreaker. Comments regarding this exercise were 100% positive and included “...it was a good way to start the conversation and I learned interesting things about my classmates.”
2. Use breakout rooms as a tool for creating connections between classmates.
The idea of breakout rooms came up repeatedly in the data and because of that it is recommended that breakout rooms be utilized as a tool for creating connections between classmates. This finding is supported by Martin and Bolliger (2018) who state instructors should form breakout groups for discussions and require students’ participation
.“I worked with different people every time and that definitely allowed me to virtually meet new people. I know more people in the program.”
3. Encourage the creation and use of independent communication channels between students.
Classmate connections were not only fostered by instructors, but by the students themselves. Students created spaces using various technologies for chatting about class, free from an instructor’s intrusion.
“The things that kept us engaged with other students were not something the professor was ever involved in. In private channels, you were able to talk about things without the professor being present.”
4. Encourage all students to turn on their cameras.
There are, of course, exceptions to this recommendation for various reasons such as not being in an environment conducive to camera usage or poor internet connection.
“I think it was nice to see everyone’s faces…I had one or two classes that were smaller and everyone had their video on, but in bigger classes no one had their cameras on.”
5. Inquire into the wellbeing of students throughout the semester.
Knowing that classmates were struggling with the same isolation, loneliness and stress helped students feel less so. However, there is a caveat to this recommendation. The four participants who felt that the mental health check-ins would not be helpful brought up a valid point that should be considered before implementation. Many students may not be comfortable with such an exercise.
“...the instructor would ask how was everyone feeling today and people mentioned how miserable they felt…It was good to see that other people were going through the same thing. We were all lonely in our homes.”
6. Adopt a set of institutional guidelines for conducting an ERL class and provide training to instructors on how best to use the technologies available.
This finding is confirmed by the study conducted by Zhang, Wang, Yang and Wang (2020), which suggests that conducting online instructor training can help tackle the problem of consistency.
“We’ve spent more or less a year and a half on these things and it still sucks. No one has designed something that is a fully remote collaboration. I don’t think that the software exists.”