Web Shifts: A Case Study of Conversational Learning from Online Social Interaction

As the Internet advanced, World Wide Web communicative practices shifted from static social interactions to dynamic processes. The research addressed instructional design needs that emerged as Web-based shifts caused challenges for designing instructional strategies for online learners. The descriptive case study focused on the need to align social interactions in online course rooms with Internet users' common practices and social expectations. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to explore instructional designers', administrators', and educators' experiences with conversational learning from social interactions in online learning environments. The research questions extended to understanding how instructional strategies encouraged, supported, or promoted the development of learning communities. The research findings produced an authentic conceptual representation of online learning programs and course rooms. Six single one-hour audio-recorded interview sessions were with online stakeholders employed for at least five years in the computer science, business, information technology, instructional technology, teacher education, and nursing higher education departments at a state university. The data analysis methods included In Vivo coding with predefined response codes gathered from collaborative learning, online design, and social attributes in literature and elaborative encoding of new nodes from the NVivo interview transcripts of the online stakeholders' descriptions. The results showed interdependent relationships amid the conceptual data that would help instructional designers design instructional strategies for the development of online learning communities. Cross weaving the data in themes revealed cohabited foundational properties of online learning communities. The online stakeholders' experiences as department chairs, program directors, curriculum designers, and online learning developers would help instructional designers design instructional strategies for online higher education students. The online stakeholders' descriptions of online learning course rooms showed that learner-centered coexisted with learner-driven online environments. The student-to-content supplemental course material caused current conversational learning outcomes from social interactions to develop autonomy, engagement, and critical thinking. The authentic online learning environment illustrated standards and accessibility measures implemented by instructional designers and knowledge management shared practices used by administrators. The theoretical and sociocultural categories in the conceptual framework reflected learning presence reflected in the pedagogical based instructional scaffolding strategies practiced by online educators that promoted metacognitive conversational learning outcomes. The descriptions of online stakeholders' experience showed the creative and innovative use of online social interactions that promoted dynamic social interactions.