What Does "engagement" Mean? A Teaching-as-research (TAR) Project that Tested a Digital Engagement Model

Ronald Yaros | Journalism

Abstract

Ron Yaros While the pandemic forced instructors to redesign courses for synchronous sessions, many students were forced to devote several hours per day to attend multiple sessions with different teaching styles and learning strategies. Zoom meetings varied in time, activities, and instructor expectations ranging from “breakout rooms” to keeping their cameras on during class. Given these variances, what exactly does “engagement” mean in your class?

My research and teaching focus on how digital media has radically changed engagement with content since the first smartphone was introduced with continuous web access in 2007. I synthesize research from communication, educational psychology, cognitive psychology, and human-computer interaction to propose a “digital engagement model.” This year offered the perfect opportunity to test the model that predicts the steps virtually any digital user completes before and during their initial exposure to any digital content. These predictions are possible because every user brings their level of digital self-regulation and topic interest to any content, including the content in your Zoom sessions.

This presentation describes the presentation format plus the formative and summative assessments of how students in two journalism courses engaged with content using an online platform that runs concurrently on Zoom. The model tested ten interactive tasks in a course with 18 journalism seniors during the 2020-21 academic year. In spring 2021, the project added a larger general education iSeries course of 45 undergraduates.

Presentation

digital engagement organization of presentation

Instructions for participating.