“This Class Is Not Just a Class. It Really Is a Community”: The Potential of Online Forums as High-Impact Practices and Sites of Agile Teaching and Learning

Abstract

This preliminary study documents and explores the myriad ways that asynchronous online forums (AOFs) are high-impact practices (HIPs) and have the potential to create a community in the online class. The project focuses on the structured reflections of 450 writing students at the University of West Florida, a large public university in the southeastern United States, from Spring 2020 to early Autumn 2021—throughout the COVID-19 quarantine—and presents the experience in their voices and through their eyes. While the literature in HIPs is replete with analyses and applications, there is a gap in the study of online writing instruction. This research, as a prelude to an extended pilot study in 2021–2022, consists of metacognitive writing that can be productively analyzed in light of HIPs as a component of the agile classroom, one that is based on collaboration and innovation. The most surprising and exciting discovery is that students themselves signal the deepest impact of AOFs on the class and the university community. This study offers informed and specific recommendations, including forum assignments, to implement and develop this HIP across the curriculum. Further, given the impact of COVID-19 on the university community, the study provides fellow educators with student insight and proven methods for improvement in online instruction, particularly for vulnerable student populations.