Eliminating the Front Row: How Teaching in the Chat Fosters Student Engagement

Abstract

There has been a movement toward pedagogies that employ student-centered learning (SCL) to increase student engagement and motivation. Our experience transitioning to remote teaching due to the COVID-19 pandemic provided an opportunity for us to observe how students used the chat function to take ownership of their learning. We used qualitative content analysis to analyze data from 53 graduate students’ chats over the course of the 2020-2021 academic year. Findings revealed students used the chat for motivation, encouragement, and active learning.

Keywords:

• Chat
• motivation
• positive deviance
• remote learning
• student-centered learning