Improving Asynchronous Learning With GoReact

Joshua Hardt:

I need to make sure that my students are keeping up and that they are aware of what they need to know and that all of these ideas are making sense. And so, if they are not providing some sort of feedback to me usually in the form of questions, then I have no idea where they are until they turn in a piece of work and I find that it is garbage. So that’s a big problem, one that I have spent a lot of time trying to solve. How do I encourage students to provide more feedback to me so I can help them sooner?

And then there’s the discussion where there is that back and forth, that feedback that how do I do this again, here’s how you do that. I didn’t understand this, here you go. Both of these things are required in a fully functioning course, be that synchronous or asynchronous. It’s just in a class in general, both these things are required, but in an asynchronous course, it feels like there’s a wall.

Well, that’s where GoReact comes in. Okay? I started using GoReact a few years ago. I was looking for a solution to these problems. I had found a few things that gave me progress here or there, but nothing as monumental has improved the quality of my online courses as much as GoReact has, and this is why. My students, when they’re watching my lectures that I have put on GoReact are able to leave those time stamped messages. At that moment that they are thinking about a thing, they can start writing it. It’s not, “I’m watching a lecture and I don’t quite understand and I really need to ask them about it.” I’ll do it later when I’m done watching the lecture. Do it now. So many things could be solved in life, not just education. If you just do it now and GoReact, they can do it now. I have a question, do it now. Ask it.

Guess what? I go back in there and I will look and I answer those questions. That’s that timely communication. My promise to my students is I will check every lecture, every 24 hours and answer any new questions that have been asked about it. Yes, it tends to be a lot of work for me, but the work that I put in to do that is at least half of the amount that I put into an in-person class simply because of the ease of the format. Not only is this ability to ask questions a smoother process, but they can leave a video if they don’t want to type, if they’re not even in a position to type. If they’re watching on their phone, they can just leave a video question. They can leave an audio question. They can say, “Hey, Professor Hardt, you said this. I read an article about that” and attach a link to that or a PDF document. They can do all sorts of things in GoReact.

And the ease of communication using this tool has had a direct effect on my students’ ability to gain in the first place, but then to keep the information that I give them.