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TO CHAT OR TO CHATTER: MAKING ONLINE SENSE OF THE CHAT ROOM ENVIRONMENT

Bernard John Poole
University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, Johnstown, PA, USA
Mandi Axmann
RAU University, Johannesburg, South Africa
Cynthia M. Calongne
Colorado Technical University, Colorado Springs, CO, USA
Dawn Cox
Cochise College Online Campus, Sierra Vista, AZ, USA

Abstract

Given the right conditions, the synchronous environment of the Chat Room can be a successful medium for learning. Typically the Chat Room is viewed as a free form, unfocused medium for communication. However, it also can be very structured and well-defined. In the context of a college course, what is the best approach to take?

The following questions thus arise and will be addressed in this paper: What are some of the reservations that professors might have about using the Chat Room? Why include the Chat Room as a tool in the online learning environment? What is the role of the instructor? What are the conditions for optimal learning in the context of the Chat Room? What is the role of immediacy and feedback? How can the Chat Room, in its various forms, cater to different learning styles?

Introduction

To chat, or to chatter: that is the question:
Whether ‘tis nobler in the Chat Room to suffer
the busy banter of freely flowing discourse,
Or to take up the gavel ‘gainst such pointless prattle,
And, by direction, end it?

Pardon the outrageous parody of Shakespeare's immortal words! But it asks an interesting question about the use of the Chat Room for online learning. Assuming that value for learning is to be found therein, how can that value be rendered optimal?

Asynchronous communication, where the participants in the communication are not online at the same time (the bulletin board and e-mail, for example) perhaps already provides an adequate forum for discussion when conducting an online course. Turoff (1989) contends that the asynchronous mode of interaction is most important because "the potential for real improvement in the group process lies in the fact that individuals can deal with that part of the problem they can contribute to at a given time, regardless of where other individuals are in the process."

The Chat Room is a synchronous communication tool. Interaction between the participants (between the learners, or between learner and instructor) occurs online in real-time. Given the right conditions, the synchronous environment of the Chat Room also can be a successful medium for learning. Typically the Chat Room is viewed as a free form, unfocused medium for communication. However, it also can be very structured and well-defined. In the context of a college course, what is the best approach to take?

The following questions thus arise and will be addressed in this paper:

  1. What reservations do professors have about using the Chat Room?
  2. Why include the Chat Room as a tool in the online learning environment?
  3. What is the role of the instructor?
  4. What are the conditions for optimal learning in the context of the Chat Room?
  5. What is the role of immediacy and feedback?
  6. How can the Chat Room, in its various forms, cater to different learning styles?

Let us address each of these questions in turn.

1. What reservations do professors have about using the Chat Room?

Here are some of the negatives that undermine the Chat Room’s potential as a successful learning environment.

  • In an online class where students may be residing on opposite sides of the world, the time change can make a mutually convenient meeting time hard, if not impossible, to schedule.
  • Often students come into an online course with the expectation that it is ‘self-paced’ or independent study. They complain that interacting with other students is a ‘waste of time.’ They just want to do the lessons and complete the course.
  • The success of the Chat session depends on the attendance of each member and on the manner in which each carries out his/her role. If someone doesn’t attend the Chat session, the organization of the session breaks down and the quality of the learning experience is lessened.
  • Organization is the key to a successful Chat. Often, however, some of the members of the group attend the Chat without proper preparation. They are unaware of the assigned roles or of the topics to be discussed. This also will diminish the learning experience and the eventual product that the group is able to produce.
  • Computer/internet/server problems, of course, are always a threat to any online assignment. But they are particularly detrimental to a scheduled project like a synchronous discussion.
  • Any group project, whether face-to-face or online, may have particular members doing most of the work and others just getting by. It may be more difficult to determine who the doers are and who the slackers are online since some of their interaction may occur via email (to which the instructor does not have access). Students often hesitate to report this type of behavior for fear of repercussions from other students, especially if more group projects are scheduled.
  • Sometimes, in the Chat Room as much as face-to-face, certain individuals ‘rub each other the wrong way.’ Such personality conflicts can be more pronounced in an online environment because the very nature of the written word (without having to look someone in the eye) can be misconstrued or more hurtful than in a normal setting. The spirit of the discussion is immediately crushed when two members of the group clash.

All these negatives beg the question that is addressed in the next section of the paper.

2. Why include the Chat Room as a tool in the online learning environment?

The Chat Room is sometimes considered the stepchild of online communications. Even though it is included in the online course, it is frequently underutilized, ignored, or misunderstood. It may be useful to look at the different faces of synchronous communication such as the Chat Room:

Method

Function

Purpose

IRC - Instant Relay Chat

Real-time, text-based, multiple users

Real-time group and individual discussions. Peer and facilitator discussions and assessment

IM - Instant Messaging

Real-time, text-based, can include video and audio streaming

Peer and facilitator discussions and assessment

MUDs & MOOs - Multi User Domains

Real-time, text-based, may include images and/or 3-D GUI

Demonstration and role-playing

Web-broadcasting

Real-time, text-based, video and audio streaming, audience control

Real-time web-presentations and audience interaction

Web safari

Real-time, text-based, video and audio streaming, audience control

Real-time web search or web browsing sessions

Virtual Classroom

Real-time, text-based, audience control

Real-time communication tools for managing interactions

The Chat Room is a tool or environment like any other, and does not enhance learning on its own. The effectiveness of the Chat Room lies in the activities planned around it and how it is incorporated into the general design and delivery of the online course. Not all students respond well to online studies. However, student fears and uncertainty can be reduced through the effective use of the Chat Room's real-time interface when augmented by the asynchronous medium of the discussion board (Calongne, 2002).

The advantages of synchronous communication such as Chat include the following features.

  • Discussion is interactive.
  • Feedback is timely.
  • There is productive exploration of concepts through real-time exchanges of information.
  • New topics and questions are identified as the class reflects and discusses the material.
  • The environment for interaction is less formal.
  • Group dynamics are taken advantage of and students can bounce ideas off each other and the professor.
  • The Chat Room makes it easy to hold virtual office hours and establishes a connection in real-time between the students and the professor.
  • Chat reduces the volume of email and the number of discussion board posts.

Students in asynchronous discussions on bulletin boards may feel disconnected from their classmates or the professor when the interaction is too static, if it is infrequent, or if the feedback is not timely (Hara et al., 2000). Not all students participate equally in asynchronous discussions, whereas participants in the Chat Room are more likely to add their contributions and ask questions when the subject is confusing.

In an online course, the amount of email for students and for the professor can be excessive (Mendels, 1999). Since the Chat can target specific questions and include a group in the discussion, everyone has an opportunity to experience the answers firsthand. This avoids some duplication of questions and cuts down on email.

The Chat Room provides the opportunity for students and the instructor to interact in real-time for discussion of course concepts. Chats can take the form of classroom discussions, virtual office hours, or social interactions. The Chat Room thus helps to organize the class into a community, simulating the face-to-face environment to some degree. Everyone has an opportunity to get to know everyone else better, to listen to examples from diverse backgrounds and work environments, and to bond. The class is no longer a group of faceless names, but people who share common experiences and goals.

The Chat Room promotes critical thinking as topics are explored (Tapscott, 1998). While this same discussion can occur in asynchronous learning networks (Jaffee, 1998), the Chat Room interaction tends to especially benefit from spontaneity and helps to reduce fear and uncertainty between students and the instructor (Hara et al., 2000). Chat Room conversation triggers ideas among the participants. Students who normally would focus only on the facts in a post to a discussion board tend to participate more freely in the Chat Room. Case studies and examples are openly discussed, which prompts students to offer contributions from their own experiences, worrying less about how their contributions will be perceived.

Courses which have short duration (5 or 6 weeks) benefit from the Chat Room since students can receive timely (synchronous) feedback to confirm course requirements and course concepts. The classroom Chats are saved, allowing students at a later date to refer to the ideas and examples discussed.

3. What is the role of the instructor?

It is the instructor's responsibility to ensure optimal conditions for the students' Chat. A good instructor will plan ahead and carefully prepare the environment so that students will gain maximum learning benefit from the Chat. This involves the instructor in the following six preparatory tasks.

Provide recommendations for successful Chat

Students need all the help they can get when they are new to the Chat Room experience. It is important for the instructor to prepare the students with a set of tips or recommendations for conducting successful Chat. Such tips are discussed in section 4.

Define roles

Each member of the group should be given a definable role which can be used as a component of the assessment rubric for the Chat Room. Roles are discussed in section 4.

Prepare the students for their roles

Assignment of a role is no indication that a student is ready to assume that role. The instructor must lay out explicitly what each role involves so that students have a clear idea of what is expected of them. These expectations should be explained in advance in such a way that the student has the opportunity to ask questions about just what a particular role entails. A rubric for the Chat Room exercise also will provide the students with a clear understanding of their roles in the Chat Room.

Define the length of Chat sessions

The instructor should determine the length of Chat sessions dependent on the nature of the discussion topic as well as on the experience of the students involved. Synchronous communication works well for short sessions--maybe two hours maximum. But it is problematic for longer periods, with individual attention and learning value decreasing rapidly, particularly if the participants are in a working office environment. It is important that the time slot be adhered to, rather than the students lose interest in the discussion when it goes on too long.

Carefully monitor the Chat sessions and reflect on the process

The instructor must read the transcript of every session. The students should be aware that they are being asynchronously "observed" and evaluated in this way. The instructor does not participate in the discussion, however, but rather steps back, allowing the students to feel free to say what they want. This will work well if the instructor has prepared the students as indicated above and as further explained in section 4 of this paper. This "hands off" approach reflects the philosophy of Dr. Maria Montessori who saw her teachers as observers of learning rather than the source of it (Kramer, 1976). The instructor should be prepared to learn from each Chat Room experience and adapt the structure, if necessary, based on that evaluation.

Assess group and individual contributions

Assessment is always a key instructor role. Well-designed rubrics and careful evaluation of the Chat Room transcripts and reports will assist in this process. What assessment instruments should be used? Peer review has been shown to make an effective contribution to overall assessment (Kearsley, 2000). But students need to be guided in their assessment of each other. Should a student be penalized for not having much to say? Does the student with most to say get the highest grade? Does the instructor need to compare one student with another? Is it enough that the students participate and fulfill their role?

The good instructor thus will carefully define and design for effective Chat Room learning.

4. What are the conditions for optimal learning in the context of the Chat Room?

Here are some useful guidelines for successful Chat.

  • Small groups of 4 or 5 discussants work best (Kearsley, 2000). Too many participants will result in confusion and lack of focus on the topic at hand. The degree of interactivity within a live session is controlled by the instructor and will be more limited for larger audiences as the interaction processes become harder to manage. With very large audiences the aim should be to use the tool essentially as a broadcast session rather than one which is highly interactive. This raises the issue of bandwidth when designing content for dissemination across this medium. Text transmits with minimal delay, but the transmission of graphics and sound in the Chat Room is still an unrealistic expectation.
  • It is important to have an established topic, which usually will be related to information that has already been discussed in the class as a whole. Thus, the Chat will reinforce familiar subject matter and spring from it. The students should go to the Chat Room anticipating the topic and their learning goals (Pratt & Palloff, 1999).
  • Another consideration in synchronous communication is language--it is much easier to interact in your own language. Students may be divided in pre-discussion groups according to their home language in advance of a session to provide them the opportunity to brainstorm in their own language.
  • The students need freedom to discuss a time to meet in the Chat Room. Schedules are sometimes difficult to coordinate.
  • Students need to understand how to use the Chat Room for discussion, so a practice session might help. Perhaps a first Chat might be limited to half an hour, so that the students can get used to the environment. This first Chat might be followed by a whole class discussion of the experience.
  • Participants should be advised that it is sometimes best to write a complete thought as a short paragraph before sharing it with the members of the Chat Room. Zinging out a series of one-liners which together make up a coherent thought can lose their effect when they are interspersed with messages posted by others. There is also the problem of scrolling which causes earlier messages to disappear off the page. The challenge in Chat is to present coherent thoughts, which is why practice is important.
  • The Chat(s) should be part of a continuum of requirements for a course, with pre- and post-projects and assignments that together contribute to a successful learning gestält. Products could be anything from a "homework" assignment to a major project (Pratt & Palloff, 1999).
  • Roles such as the following are assigned in order to assure an orderly and fruitful session (Pratt & Palloff, 1999).
    • The Moderator controls the questions to be discussed and moves the discussion along when appropriate. The Moderator also watches the clock and makes sure the discussion ends on time. The student moderator must be supplied with a list of discussion topics and goals that are set before the Chat. This list should be sent to the rest of the group so that they can anticipate responses and have some time to think about what they want to contribute. The list can be predefined by the instructor, or the instructor can ask the class to brainstorm for discussion topics ahead of time.
    • The Prompter or Promoter is responsible for livening up the discussion when it flags.
    • The Reporter(s) will draft a "Chat report" in essay form. The instructor should set guidelines for the report that might require a summary of the Chat, the quality of the interaction, and the general atmosphere in the Chat Room. To this end, students in the group should be given supporting roles in the production of a report that will be well written, well presented, and free of errors.
  • Students need to feel comfortable with each other, perhaps as a result of previous interactions in a forum environment or as a result of email correspondence, or from face-to-face meetings where possible.
  • Two or more Chats will usually be needed to ensure that the ultimate product (a paper, assignment, etc.) is of high quality.

5. What is the role of immediacy and feedback?

Sometimes more feedback is required than that which can be achieved with the use of e-mail or bulletin boards. Anyone who has ever had the feeling that "this will be quicker if I phone the person than send an e-mail" has experienced the time-delay caused by asynchronous communication.

The immediacy of the Chat Room can provide the emotional awareness that a group of people is listening. Peyton (1989) states that real-time interactive writing on a local area network can narrow the gap between students' speech and their writing, because "writing" can now have the qualities of speech. It can occur in a Chat Room dialog, too, where it can have an intimate and casual quality.

The benefits of synchronous interaction are that learning and feedback are immediate and therefore happen in shortened elapsed times (Anderson, 1999). Synchronous interaction is ideal for activities such as brainstorming, group decision-making, and remedial coaching, since these activities need rapid interaction and feedback, and tend to be of a lower quality if spread over a longer period of time.

6. How can the Chat Room, in its various forms, accommodate different learning styles?

Online Chats can accommodate different learning styles based on their adaptive and responsive nature. The body of research on learning and retention is vast, so this section of the paper focuses primarily on studies involving college science and secondary school students. The following styles were discussed in Felder’s exploration of how college science students learn (Felder, 1993).

  • Sensory and Intuitive Perception
  • Visual and Verbal Input
  • Inductive and Deductive Organization
  • Active and Reflective Processing
  • Sequential and Global Understanding

Students tend to focus on different types of information, have different mental models of how the world works, and absorb, interpret, and learn at different rates. The difference between sensory and intuitive learners depends on their preference for experiencing the information through their senses or whether they can draw from their memory and imagination, and reflect on the subject (Felder, 1989). Intuitive perception relies heavily on the student’s imagination, cognition, and interpretation whereas sensory learners need facts and observations before internalizing and using the information.

Chat allows both sensory and intuitive learners to gain information. During the Chat, facts and observations are presented, yet the pace and flow of the Chat shifts dynamically to accommodate the imagination and needs of the intuitive learners. Chat is not static, but adjusts to the needs of each student.

How students learn is also affected by whether they are visual or verbal learners. The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words is true for the visual learner. Most people in western cultures tend to be visual learners (Barbe et. al, 1981), yet they still have a strong emphasis on text to convey course concepts, even in the online classroom. This is because text is easier to access than audio-video data, given bandwidth issues with students using dialup connections.

The following are the findings of a secondary school study on the average retention rate after 24 hours from various instructional techniques (Barbe, 2002):

  • Lecture 5%
  • Reading 10%
  • Audio Visual 20%
  • Demonstration 30%
  • Discussion 50%
  • Practice by Doing 75%
  • Teach Others 90%

Retention improves when the instructional method includes discussion, practice by doing, and teaching others. In the online Chat, we can encourage students to exchange roles and can allow them to assume responsibility for the discussion of course concepts and case studies. While asynchronous learning methods do make strong use of discussion, discussions in an online Chat are more spontaneous and tend to be more varied.

Inductive learners benefit from seeing case studies and examples first, then working back into the theories and principles, whereas deductive learners study the theory first, then apply it to applications and examples. While induction improves retention and learning, most college courses focus on deductive learning methods (Felder, 1993).

Active and reflective learners use different approaches in their problem-solving strategies. Active learners benefit from group discussions whereas reflective learners most likely prefer asynchronous learning methods so they can work alone or in pairs and communicate via the discussion board.

Online Chats can revolve around active discussions of case studies during which the students analyze and discuss the issues involved. While reflective learners may be slow to respond in the online Chats, they nonetheless contribute significantly to the discussion. Studies of active classroom discussions show an improvement in comprehension and long-term recall over passive learning environments (Felder, 1993).

Sequential learners tend to focus on small sets of related data whereas global learners go for the big picture. Sequential learners solve problems well, but sometimes miss how the big picture relates to other subjects and applications.

Global learners need to know how the course material relates to their prior knowledge and experience. They often have difficulty working with sequential learning systems until they understand how it relates to the broad perspective.

It is hard to anticipate what type of examples will best suit a group of students until we get to know the students and hear how they respond to the case studies. The online Chat gives the instructor the ability to tailor the examples to fit the audience. While we cannot tailor each course to an individual student’s needs, we can strike a balance in our instructional methods (Felder, n.d.) and target our Chat Room discussions to meet these needs.

Conclusion

Wallace (2002) makes the following observation about the Chat Room: "It is my feeling that synchronous or 'real-time' communication is an often-overlooked teaching technique since more than half of my [students] already use an Internet Chat Room regularly at home."

Technology is changing the way we do education. Soon every student will have ready access to wireless Web technologies and it is only to be expected that applications such as online Chat will become a familiar medium for educational discussion. Instructors who choose to ignore this medium may well deny their students the opportunity for thoughtful, interactive engagement in learning. We hope that this paper has clarified some of the issues involved to the point where instructors consider the pedagogical possibilities presented by carefully crafted "chat" and where, in the Chat Room, aimless "chatter" becomes the exception rather than the rule.

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