Teaching and assessing active learning in online academic courses

Abstract

The current study examines the teaching of 21st century skills during an online academic course. Drawing on the established community of inquiry framework, we assumed that student learning experiences would be correlated with their level of involvement, their perceptions of the course quality and ethicality, and the resulting skills improvement. One hundred and thirty-four (134) college students who enrolled in an online course answered our questionnaire. This course setting was developed in order to create an active learning atmosphere with diverse online activities that were intended to facilitate the learning of 21st century skills. A partial correlation was found between student involvement and their learning experiences. Significant correlations were found between student perceptions of their 21st century skills improvement, the course's quality, the course's ethicality, and their learning experience. We concluded that the course we created produced a meaningful learning experience which empowered students.