Student Engagement with Subject Matter, and Student
Collaboration
In addition to lecture and demonstration discussed above, there are other kinds of opportunities for facilitating student engagement with subject matter in an online learning environment. All media types considered can apply in this regard.
WWW search and site visitation, threaded discussion, text chat, audio chat, video chat, co-browsing, and collaborative computing are among additional opportunities for student engagement with subject matter. Requirements for synchronicity relative to various forms of chat, and relative to co-browsing, may be considered negative by some online students who have difficulty being available in a particular time-frame; threaded discussion offers some of the same advantages, including student collaboration, of chat and co-browsing, without a synchronicity requirement.
Such engagement with subject matter can be greatly enhanced through student collaboration on questions or problems. One of the criticisms of business/industry relative to student education is that educational institutions do not sufficiently allow students to learn to work together, and so increased student collaboration should be considered desirable from a business/industry satisfaction point of view.