The 4 types of Learners in your Forums

Is your forum a thriving metropolis or a ghost town?

Are your students engaging with the content and each other?

Managing online participation can be difficult, especially in a learning environment.  As course creator you are the technician, trouble shooter, social director and teacher.  You are everything to every student, and every student’s needs are different.

What you need to do is to find a way to connect and be available to all your students.  You need to challenge the way they are
participating with each other and the content.

And to do that you need to find out what type of students are inside your forum.

Right at this moment there are four types of students inside your course.  And each one is looking to connect and engage with you and your ideas.  They want your encouragement when they are stuck, your praise when they get it right.

Taxonomy of Online Participation in Online Courses

Bento,  Brownstein, Kemery, Zacur (2005)

Missing In Action

The Missing in Action student is your drop out.  This student starts the course like everyone else – signs up and pays their money.  They may even start doing the work and interacting in the forums. But then they stop.

Reasons why they are Missing in Action

• Don’t have enough time
• Lack skills to complete the course (online or technical)
• Feel lost inside the course – hasn’t connected with other members, not sure how to find all the information inside the course site
• Didn’t get into a working rhythm – lacks motivation to sustain online learning
• Sticky Beak – brought the course to check out the competition

Social Participant

The Social Participants are an interesting group. On first look you think they are getting a lot from your course.  They are always chatty, and your forum is alive because of them.  But beneath the noise you see a group that is not showing much depth of knowledge in what you are teaching.  This group also alienates other students, especially the Missing in Action students and Witness Learners.  You could think that this group is your typical “cool crowd” but that is not true.  They are just genuine learners who enjoy the social aspect of the web.

Witness Learners

Witness Learners are your quiet achievers.  They are more interested in your content and activities than the other people in the
group.  It would be wrong to label these learners as lurkers and place in the same group as Missing in Action students.  Sure, they are quiet but they are also engaged.  They are learning.

Active Learners

The Active Learner is the most obvious student to pick. Not only are they engaging in your community, they are also completing
every idea and activity you throw at them. They soak up your ideas and always wanting more.

And therein lies the problem with Active Learners – your course might not be able to keep extending these students.  And if you
don’t extend Active Learners they will stop engaging in the course, and leave.

So how do you connect and engage with each learner?

The answer is simple:  treat them differently.

And to give you a helping hand I have created A Guide to Interacting with All Learners.  It is free to use and you can download it here (no opt-in necessary).  Please also share the guide, or this post to anyone who needs it (maybe you know an online teacher who needs to read it)

Which type of student resonates with you?