Teaching strategies to promote immediacy in online graduate courses

Abstract

The present study is the result of the research question: How do teachers promote immediacy through interaction with their students in online graduate courses? Research was carried out at Tecnológico de Monterrey, a Mexican private university that offers online courses. The research methodology employed a qualitative approach of virtual ethnography, which entails non-participative observation and interviews with head professors and teaching assistants with the purpose of exploring the manner in which teachers foster immediacy in the discussion forums of online courses. The findings are organized into three main categories: instructional design, forms of communication and teaching strategies promoting immediacy, which show the manner in which teachers use immediacy when interacting with their students; immediacy that was also found in the administrative and academic forums of the online courses researched.