This showcase presents educators' insights from an international survey on strategies to increase student engagement in online learning environments.
Significant research has reinforced the importance of online student engagement, learning and success (Brown et al., 2023; Cutri and Mena, 2020; Martin and Bolliger, 2018; Stone, 2019). Significant research also exists related to the elements of student engagement (Redmond et al., 2018), conditions (Lawrence et al., 2023), and dimensions of online engagement. However, teachers currently employ limited research-related strategies to heighten online engagement.
This research sought to examine practice-based examples of online engagement strategies by a diverse group of international online teachers employed to explore the elements of engagement referred to in Redmond et al.’s (2018) Online Engagement Framework (social, cognitive, behavioural, collaborative and emotional).
A survey consisting of multiple-choice and short-answer questions was promoted through professional networks. Purposive sampling was also employed as an effective technique to approach teachers who taught online or had referred to or used the online engagement framework as part of their own teaching.
Evidence of outcomes and effectiveness
Research revealed that educators plan learning activities thoughtfully and aligned and used a broad range of pedagogical interventions in the ‘flow’ of teaching These included contextualisation, teacher presence, developing strong linkages from learning activities to assessments and developing trust with their students.
This project has international significance in showcasing not only the types of strategies teachers employ to heighten student engagement, but also provides insights into the underpinning rationale behind these choices and decision-making. The intent is that the content shared not only inspires but helps build higher education teachers' capacity in terms of different types of online engagement strategies that can be employed.
Through the study's model, participants will share teaching experiences and explore opportunities for online engagement via an online poll and corkboard.

Focus: The showcase presents outcomes of a year-long, multi-cohort study, using asynchronous polls to facilitate social presence and engagement in online courses. Attendees will understand the practicalities of asynchronous polls, and how they can be designed with differing pedagogical intent.
Background/Context: Moore’s (2018) concept of Transactional Distance demonstrates challenges to online engagement. Discussion boards, a traditional mode of asynchronous engagement, typically see low levels of engagement (Farrell & Brunton, 2020).
Description: H5P polls allow students to see real-time responses of their cohort, asynchronously. In this project, polls were designed to focus on facilitating social presence (Garrison, 2011), or engaging students in a deeper learning of course content. Across one year, four cohorts of fully-online students engaged with asynchronous polls.
Method: The study adopted a mixed-methods approach. Data from four teaching periods (with polls) was compared to prior cohorts. Statistical analyses of learning analytics measured online engagement. Poll effectiveness was also assessed through student evaluation data. Social presence was explored through Qualitative Content Analyses of Student Evaluations of Teaching (Schreier, 2012).
Evidence: Results support the inclusion of asynchronous polls. Qualitative analyses reflect a heightened sense of social presence and community. In addition, learning analytics suggest an 18% increase in time spent on module pages. Quantitative student evaluation data demonstrates greater effectiveness of digital activities in the course, compared to the university mean.
Contribution: With universities seeking to increase the number of fully-online offerings, there is a need to develop online pedagogy. This research provides evidence for the effectiveness of asynchronous polling to enhance the student experience and their sense of belonging to an online learning community.
Engagement: Audience members will prototype a poll that can be embedded into their online learning environment. The poll will be intentionally designed to augment social presence, or to engage students in a core course concept.

Focus: We present research outcomes for a series of escape room learning experiences designed to collaboratively engage students around the theme of cyber security.
Background/context: Educational escape rooms (EERs) are a recent game-based learning approach encompassing collaborative, time-limited puzzle-solving to create an engaging learning experience (López-Pernas et al., 2019). In contrast to traditional recreational escape rooms, puzzles used centre around domain specific learning outcomes. EERs can take several forms: online, combination-lock and electronic decoder-boxes (Ross & Hall, 2023).
Description: This research extends the concept of EERs to a human-factors in cyber security classroom through three separate escape rooms, each consisting of three puzzles.
Method: Data was captured based on post-activity surveys and analytics data collected by decoder boxes. Narratives used for the escape room scenarios were implemented using live actors and through short video-recorded segments. The escape room activities were undertaken by over 70 participants in groups of 3-4 using electronic decoder boxes.
Evidence : Student feedback from the subject was overwhelmingly positive: “This escape room improved this subject?” 4.53/5, “I wanted to complete the escape room activity?” 4.65/5. Analytics indicated that most of the groups completed the activity and made an average of 4.7 incorrect guesses per escape room.
Contribution: This research demonstrated a series of engaging collaborative puzzles, a narrative system which infuses a game experience and a validation system which motivates and facilitates learning.
Engagement: Participants will be engaged through multimedia (watching narrative elements) and through active puzzle solving.

Focus/Background:This case study delves into instructor-student feedback discourse during high cognitive demands tasks and examines factors that affect students’ actual use of feedback.
Description:One key tenet of discursive feedback is responsibility-sharing (Winstone et al., 2021), whereby both teacher and students co-construct meaning during the feedback process. However, when students are provided with high cognitive demanding tasks, the need to balance the level of responsibility-sharing may create a tension that influences student feedback uptake. Cognitive demanding tasks, in this case - researching an unfamiliar topic and writing a research report, posed substantial challenge for novice learners in terms of perceived task difficulty (Sasayama&Norris,2019) and cognitive load to perform the task (Paas, van Merriënboer & Adam, 1994). Thus, discursive feedback has the potential to promote productive interactions between teacher-students (or student-student) to mitigate or overcome some of these challenges, i.e., maintain cognitive demand while supporting task completion (Ajjawi & Boud, 2018; Yang & Carless, 2013).
Method(s):Study examines two final year Pharmacy undergraduate student dyads working on their final year research projects, with the help from their content and language instructors. Data collected includes feedback conferences with content and language instructors, and students’ reports.
Evidence:Preliminary results show two trends: 1.when content and language instructors gave differing feedback and queries related to coherence and how arguments were framed, there was a tendency for students to defer to the content instructor’s feedback. A more in-depth analysis shows that students focused on addressing disciplinary-related queries posed by their content instructors which could be perceived as a high-cognitive demanding task. 2.the content supervisor’s feedback had an impact on the students’ approach to learning. Results show discursive feedback affects the completion of task.
Contribution: Instructors’ disciplinary content knowledge may influence students’ perception of the usefulness of their feedback.
Engagement:Discussion on feedback strategies to scaffold learning during feedback.