“Here are my best online contributions and why”

Students’ perceptions of good online participation

Abstract

This paper reports students’ recounts of their best contributions to the online learning activities in a master’s course, and their accompanying reasons. Students’ self-claimed best contributions fall into three categories, (1) building and sharing new knowledge/ideas, (2) questioning peers, and (3) sharing resources. Bulk of the self-selected best contributions is in the first category (72%). The preliminary findings seem to suggest that both instructors and students hold similar standpoints on good performances in an online learning environment, i.e. to build new knowledge, to articulate and share them through interactions with course readings, reflections on personal experiences/beliefs online experiences, and interactions with peers. The findings support the view that in general students can accurately make self-assessments about their abilities and achievements, and self- assessment could be used as an alternative way of assessing online learning.