Resource: 19 Student Engagement Strategies to Start with in your Course, Himmelsbach, V. (2019). (Blog) available at https://tophat.com/blog/student-engagement-strategies/

The WHY:  This blog post presents brief overviews of engagement strategies for teaching, in the curriculum, for assessment, and for presenting.  It’s easy to read and to integrate into a course (very practical).  The source is Top Hat which is actually a higher education application (think of it as a competitor product for Blackboard).  It produces interesting and informative teaching resources such as this blog and an online teaching guide that is included in the resource section of this course.

Core reading:    Martin, F. & Bollinger, D.

(2018).  Engagement matters: Student perceptions of the importance of engagement strategies in an online learning environment.  Online Learning 22(1), 205-222.

The WHY:  The paper reports recent research in online instruction and the importance of engagement among students, with the instructor, and with the content.  Grounded in an interaction framework specific to the online environment, the authors provide an overview of the theoretical foundations of online engagement.  The results of the survey-based research study inform online course design elements and highlight the importance of instructor presence which connects to the content of Module 2.