This is a new tool to me, and I really like it! When I looked at the website, it did not show D2L. Do you know if there is something similar that is compatible with D2L?

I wonder if the student were traditional undergrad or older grad. students? I think this information is important and would inform the results and best practice recommendations

While I philosophically believe in the benefits of collaborative online learning, I have it be extra challenging in graduate courses or those for the adult learner who holds multiple and sometimes conflicting roles and responsibilities, and is not solely a "student". So, when you have a class full of working people, those with families, sports, etc. finding mutual times that work for people to collaborate and balancing learning preferences becomes more complicated in order to be successful.

Online learning is new enough that people may remember when it was done poorly; therefore, there is still much work to be done to change the negative perceptions possibly held by some.

New instructors are also sometimes surprised at the extra time it takes to do an online class.

I was surprised that the type of activities didn't influence engagement to a greater degree.

I would expect this result. When a student can see how an activity relates to other areas of their work/life they will find it to be more meaningful and be more engaged.

This is area where I think traditional F2F educators who are reluctant to try teaching an online course are misinformed. In my experience, an effective online course includes greater reflection and interaction due to every student responding instead of two or three vocal students. From a student perspective, your perspective is expected to be part of the conversation.

This was something I was surprised to discover with my first online course. Online learners are expected to participate—something that does not happen in F2F time dues to time constraints.

An important fact that cannot be ignored.

Yes! This seems to be the main take-away of this article.

This is interesting! I make the team work in my St. Mary's course optional. Maybe I should make some mandatory group or collaborative activities/exercises.But the next sentence includes discussion forums within those collaborative activities, and since the course has them weekly, maybe I'm good. Something to consider.

I'd say then that although these active learning assignments "may" serve the secondary purpose of developing social presence, they are fundamental to increasing student engagement and satisfaction since if I remember correctly from another reading we had in the course, higher social presence corresponds to higher engagement in and satisfaction with the course.

This surprises me, given how easy it is to disappear in an online course, more than in a F2F course where a teacher can stop a student while leaving to ask a question, inquire about homework, and the student can't just ignore the teacher, unlike how he/she could ignore an email or message.

Well that is a bit disappointing. I was hoping to find the magic bullet in this article that would guarantee student engagement!

This is my greatest concern, especially in performing science

I would have predicted similar scores for these since introductions are needed for form working groups

This doesn't surprise me! I think only teachers find reflective report important, or perhaps students once out of the course or when finished with their program and then they reflect upon the importance of reflection!

This is an important quote to remind us that the materials do not make a course. The best materials won't matter if there is no engagement and social presence of all course participants (i.e. students and instructor).

This is the company that created Blackboard.

This is a good list of the activities that we can strive to include in our classes.