At the beginning of the spring 2020 semester, I decided to enrich my asynchronous online learning courses with short video-conference sessions. I had been scheduled to teach a number of blended courses. However, due to the initial outbreak of COVID-19 and the impossibility of conducting in-person teaching, these blended courses were re-designated and redesigned as asynchronous online distance learning. This concerned me. In the past, I have taught numerous asynchronous online courses and have reservations about the learning environment they produce, their impact on students, the way in which they are perceived by students, and student engagement. I decided to address some of these issues by video-conference augmentation.

There were several reasons for this innovation and change in practice. First, video-conference augmentation was designed to create a communication bridge between myself as course facilitator and enrolled students. Second, video augmentation was designed to encourage student engagement by: (a) increasing course dialogue, (b) reducing perceived course structure, and consequently (c) increasing learner autonomy (Moore 1973, 2018). The expectation was that increasing instructor social presence would stimulate, encourage, and support learner activity and engagement.

I utilized Zoom video-conferencing to hold 40-minute weekly meetings with learners. During these meetings, I discussed course content, explaining the selection and intended purpose of material in that week’s learning module. In particular, I explained the relationship between the different elements in the course content and suggested narrative threads that connected them. The objective was to reconfigure structure by making it more understandable—structure understood as a designed space within which learning content and activities were embedded.

The underpinning objective was to restructure the asynchronous online courses—or rather, to make their structure more understandable and functional to students—and to direct focus on course content and learning activities. The attempt was to restructure the asynchronous learning environment, making it more flexible, more negotiable, and a place in which learner-initiated learning could take place rather than a place that simply acted as a repository for instructor-curated knowledge and content.

I monitored student reactions and comments during the video-conferences. I also asked students to keep a reflective journal in which they could share with me their thoughts and reactions, particularly about the video-conferences that had become a feature of these courses (Lindroth, 2015). My interest was on understanding student reactions and whether the video-conference augmentation had any impact on course interest, involvement, and engagement. However, I was careful not to convey these interests to students or to provide them with leading questions. Feedback provided from the student journals was not formally analysed but the following general themes emerged:

• Increased instructor dialogue and interaction. The main focus of these video conferences was to explain course structure, course content, and anticipated learning outcomes. These conversations were not about selling, telling, or justifying—they centred on explaining why the learning environment was constructed in the way that it was and on sharing the envisaged relationship between course process, dynamics, and outcomes with a community of learners. The object was to provide opportunities for learners to come to terms with the course structure, appreciate its elements, and understand how structure could be navigated and negotiated. Many students reported that these video discussions provided a great deal of clarity and understanding about course content and process.

• Transferred ownership from course designer to course participant. One student remarked that, in a previous online distance learning course, he had been confused by course content but eventually “figured out what the professor wanted” and completed the activity. In other words, the course “belonged to the professor” but students had to contend with this and complete the tasks required. Engagement was required, but no invitation to engage was extended. Video-conferencing helped me transfer ownership of subject matter to students. The rationale was that if content and learning activities would belong to them, they could claim ownership, and engage with what belonged to them.

• Accentuating critical evaluation and autonomy. Some students who had taken part in previous asynchronous distance learning experiences reported having had little exposure to critical perspectives or encouragement to come to their own conclusions. Video-conferences allowed for the active exploration of the complexity of theories, their validity, generalizability, and limitations. Meetings provided an opportunity, which would not otherwise have existed, to encourage learners to critically evaluate content and form their own considered opinions on many of the key elements and concepts in the course. This pedagogic strategy was intended to increase the learner’s sense of autonomy in the learning process.

• Making sense of distance and learning. A consistent theme of the student reflective journals was that the video-conferences established a sense of connectedness and belonging (Peacock et al., 2020). Over the semester, there was a growing sense that we were a group—albeit a group loosely bound together with a narrow purpose. Social connectedness was limited, and we never became a robust community of inquiry. The analytics of augmented online courses showed most students made the required number of discussion posts and responses. Although limited, these analytics did not suggest a particularly high level of social interaction or interest in collaborative knowledge creation (Lee, 2018; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 2014).

It seemed that a move towards a more student-centred and synergistic learning environment resolved many of the concerns that I had previously had about what had originally been deemed asynchronous online distance learning courses. Students reacted positively to the augmented approach, even although they had limited prior experience with asynchronous online distance learning and were not in a position to compare and contrast this approach with purely asynchronous learning experiences. Many students said that this had been an educationally worthwhile experience and had given them an interest in registering for future distance learning options.

Lee, K. (2018). Everyone already has their community beyond the screen: Reconceptualizing online learning and expanding boundaries. Educational Technology Research Development, 66(5), 1255–1268. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11423-018-9613-y

Lindroth, J. T. (2015). Reflective journals: A review of the literature. Update: Applications of Research in Music Education, 34(1), 66–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/8755123314548046

Moore, M. G. (1973). Towards a theory of independent learning and teaching. Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, 44(9), 661–679. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.1973.11776906

Moore, M. G. (2018). The theory of transactional distance. In M. G. Moore & W. C. Diehl (Eds.), Handbook of distance education (4th ed.) (pp. 29–44). Routledge.

Peacock, S., Cowan, J., Irvine, L., & Williams, J. (2020). An exploration into the importance of a sense of belonging for online learners. International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 21(2), 18–35. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v20i5.4539

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (2014). Knowledge building and knowledge creation: Theory, pedagogy, and technology. In K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (2nd ed.) (pp. 397–417). Cambridge University Press.

[1] A fuller explanation of the theory, intent, and outcomes of this practice can be found in the form of a practitioner’s note:

Starr-Glass, D. (2020). Encouraging engagement: Video-conference augmentation of online distance learning environments. On the Horizon, 28(3), 125-132. https://doi.org/10.1108/OTH-06-2020-0020

[2] A more in-depth description of this practice, set against the context of reflective practice, active blended learning, and Moore’s Transactional Distance theory, is presented in a chapter of an edited book that will be published in February 2021:

Starr-Glass, D. (2020). Moving towards active blended learning: An adopter’s experience. In B. C. Padilla Rodriguez & A. Armellini (Eds.), Cases on active blended learning in higher education (pp. XX-XX). IGI-Global. https://www.igi-global.com/book/cases-active-blended-learning-higher/266359

The reflective journals of students evidences of increased student interest, involvement, and engagement. However, in the courses in which this practice has been employed there has been no formal or empirical research to confirm these results or to provide evidence-based support regarding these beneficial claims. I anticipate conducting further research in this area; however, other practitioners and scholars are invited to consider similar research and to independently devise methodologies for testing the value of this augmented approach.