Promoting Student-to-Student Interactions in Online Courses

Student-to-Student interactions provide valuable educational activities that engage learners in a deeper processing of information by expressing themselves, sharing ideas, and responding to different perspectives. In face-to-face courses, students have many opportunities to interact with one another both within and outside of the classroom. However, when designing online courses, peer-to-peer communications need to be created and facilitated more purposefully.

Various research studies provide evidence that increased communications and interactions in online courses improves student learning, engagement, and satisfaction. Fostering peer-to-peer contacts helps develop a community of learners that establishes additional support, as well as opportunities to learn from one another and actively construct personal knowledge. By encouraging collaborative communications, students become more involved with their own learning, and are enabled to build expanded connections to new content.

One of the methods to promote student-to-student interactions is through peer review assignments. This activity engages students in exchanging ideas with another classmate and providing constructive feedback to enhance their final product. Assigning group work projects is another effective strategy for involving students in collaborative peer-to-peer communications. Group members need to apply positive interpersonal skills and cooperate with one another to achieve a common goal. Having learners participate in discussion boards is also an effective exercise that requires student-to-student interactions. By contributing to these conversations, students exchange different insights and viewpoints that can improve the learning experience.

Additional resources and information about this topic are available in The Exchange in Canvas, and viewing the Student-to-Student Interactions module.