Slack and Active Learning

Active and social learning exercises were a central component of the online tutorials, and course discussion was facilitated through a third-party platform we selected called Slack. We found traditional university-provided software to be outmoded and cumbersome, and we looked outside of our institution for solutions. Slack is a free Internet-based application that allows users to chat, share content, and direct messages through a web browser, desktop application, tablet, or smartphone app. ^{Footnote 1} The app (shown in figure 1) has been widely adopted as a means of office communications across the private sector and particularly by journalism, media, and Internet companies (Hess Reference Hess2015). Its popularity derives from the fact that it “syncs seamlessly across devices, features a powerful internal search engine, and is highly compatible with dozens of other programs that keep businesses running” (Hess Reference Hess2015).

Figure 1

Active Learning Exercise (iPad Version)

From a student perspective, Slack also offers something that traditional university-based technologies do not: it replicates and integrates the social-media environment that students inhabit. Students are already integrating social media into their learning in both formal and informal ways (Dabbagh and Kitsantas Reference Dabbagh and Kitsantas2011). The further adoption of social-networking technologies by instructors of online courses is “enabling individual knowledge management and construction” among students and is changing the online-learning environment “into a social learning platform or system where knowledge is socially mediated” (Dabbagh and Kitsantas Reference Dabbagh and Kitsantas2011, 3). The ability to like and up-vote comments, add emojis and GIFs, and embed links, images, and YouTube videos creates a dynamic and familiar environment for students that encourages them to not only consume but also create content. This is important because it encouraged students to log into Slack almost every day during the term as they would Facebook, Instagram, or any other social-networking app. By building a larger learning community on Slack, course learning becomes a part of our students’ larger social-media diet and one that is seamlessly integrated into their lives.

Our class of 160 students initially was divided into 16 groups of 10, similar to traditional in-person tutorial groups, for the purposes of discussion. (When enrollment subsequently decreased to 135, a few groups were combined to keep membership in each to about 12 students.) Slack allowed us to create as many private groups as necessary to accommodate tutorials. This meant that students were discussing only in their own “tutorial” of 10 to 12 students. The private channels also created a sense of camaraderie as the students got to know one another during the year.

Tutorial discussion was open to students 24 hours a day, seven days a week. However, formal discussion started on a Tuesday or a Thursday (alternating weeks) and ended at 11:59 p.m. on Sunday nights. Students were graded on their submitted work during those times in the tutorial channels. The grading scheme encouraged them to not only discuss course material but also to actively engage their peers and to apply relevant professional, personal, or other real-world experiences. Students frequently were asked to bring their own material into discussion through library-research exercises and media scans. In moving beyond the lecture material, they developed and delivered content to one another—with instructor oversight and commentary—and became active participants and stakeholders in their own learning.

The types of active and social learning exercises posed during tutorials were generally one of the three following types:

1. (1) Opinion/attitude responses, such as “Do you think the government is doing enough to combat climate change? If not, what else should it be doing? If yes, how effective will climate policy be in this country/province?” These types of exercises engaged students’ critical thinking and creativity. They were encouraged to respond to one another’s responses, ask questions, and provide additional information in support of their fellow learners.

2. (2) Debates, in which students were divided into opposing sides and asked to research, present, and respond to arguments, such as “Should Canada implement a meat tax?” Students were divided into opposing sides and provided with structured opportunities to debate an issue. They were required to engage their own research but also could use course materials.

3. (3) Research questions, which asked students to find data or evidence to support a claim using journal articles, newspaper articles, and government and NGO websites. Students were provided with a research prompt and asked to develop their own argument or assessment of the topic using the research materials they had gathered. They were asked a series of questions to lead them through an assessment of the research before engaging in a discussion of its findings and conclusions (figure 2).

Figure 2

Slack and Political Literacy (iPad Version)

The latter two categories were most related to active learning by asking students to conduct real-time research, analyze and present that research, and effectively teach their fellow participants about their findings. All three types of exercises, as well as the grading rubric, asked students to interact and learn from one another. In addition, they were asked to provide citations using The Chicago Manual of Style author-date system, which allowed them to practice an essential skill while engaging in primary research.

For all 160 students, we also created course-wide forums outside of the private tutorial groups—a space that Slack calls “channels.” These channels included announcements (#announcements); a question-and-answer section (#questions_and_answers), where students could post a question at any time and anyone could answer it, including other students; and a general channel for discussion (#general). If students wanted to direct a question to the professor or a teaching assistant, they could use the appropriate user handle, such as @jeraldsabin. The #general channel was particularly popular because students could post anything at any time, including posts about ongoing environmental news related to climate change, pipelines, and politics. These channels also created a space for students to discuss events that were happening live, such as the 2015 federal election in Canada, the 2016 US primaries, and the COP21 talks in Paris. Unexpectedly, students also logged onto Slack after the November 2015 mass shootings in Paris to talk and be with one another. This was one of the most surprising uses of Slack, which suggests that a genuine online community was created among students.

Slack enabled us to collect data on the volume of student participation and provided us with a weekly summary. On average, students posted between 500 and 600 messages to the public and private discussion channels. Therefore, each student was posting three to four responses every week. In a set of student surveys, we asked students how often they logged into Slack. Three quarters (75.6%) logged in daily and sometimes multiple times a day (table 1). Slack’s user data and the level of participation in groups observed weekly corroborated the self-reported data. Although the board is always open, Sunday evenings were the busiest time. The open-ended nature of discussion allowed for ongoing engagement during the week. It also encouraged the development of community that is not possible in traditional classroom settings. We heard from several students that they wished similar technology were available in all of their classes, both online and in-person.

Table 1

How Often Do You Log into Slack? (February 2016, n = 91)

Student Experience

We collected student feedback in November 2015 and February 2016. In the November survey, we asked students about their early use and attitude toward Slack. We received responses from 126 students, an 82% response rate (155 students were enrolled at the time). Students stated that they used Slack daily (6%), three to four times a week (30%), twice a week (38%), only on Sundays (21%), and rarely to never (5%). These percentages changed dramatically during the course of the year.

Three open-ended questions were posed: (1) What do you like about the course?; (2) What do you dislike about the course?; and (3) What suggestions do you have about Slack? There was even distribution among the course, with a third of students enthusiastic, a third relatively neutral, and a third confused or frustrated by Slack. Students who were positive about Slack left comments such as the following:

Of those students who did not like Slack, the response was more related to how it was integrated into the course and graded. For example:

In late February 2016, we asked students to complete a more formal assessment of Slack after using it for five months in the course. In this survey, we received 91 responses, a response rate of 67% (student enrollment was 132 at the time). We asked students to compare their use of Slack in this course to platforms used in other online courses they had taken. We also asked them how they accessed Slack and how often. We saw a significant increase in daily access, with three quarters of respondents accessing the platform once or more per day. Although the majority of those logins were through Slack’s desktop website, we also saw a sizeable number using the platform’s smartphone app (35.2%).

When they compared Slack to other online-learning platforms, students used terms including “easier” and “user friendly.” They also expressed that the dynamism of the platform allowed for greater interaction and conversation—a key component of active and social learning approaches. As one student stated, “It’s a great way to start a discussion as opposed to just using the Blackboard discussion board (as I have used previously in another online class).”

We also asked students about the active learning components of the course; the reaction was more mixed. Whereas some enjoyed conducting research for discussion, others were less enthusiastic (e.g., “Nothing too strenuous. I don’t mind”) or cautiously coming around (e.g., “I used to find it tedious because I was not used to it, however I enjoy it now”). Others were concerned about the time involved and the incentives to participate. As one student responded, “To motivate the research, maybe give extra points; discussion time is consuming. Then you add the research time and it’s a full assignment per week. Considering that we have other classes, work, and a personal life, it is hard to balance.”

Instructor Experience

Slack has enriched our teaching in numerous and unexpected ways. When we mention to colleagues that we teach online, they often remark, “Don’t you miss teaching?” or “Aren’t the students all just cheating?” In response to the first question, we find ourselves arguing that we now interact with our students more, not less. We log into Slack daily and discuss current events and course material with them. At online-instructor orientation, we were told repeatedly, “Social presence and teacher immediacy have a positive impact on student satisfaction and learning” (Gunderson et al. Reference Gunderson, Theiss, Wood and Conti-O’Hare2014, 1). Indeed, we were strongly encouraged to “connect” with our students. Slack is our connection.

Slack is a way to provide a “state of being there when using an outside medium” as well as a way for the professor to reduce “psychological distance in interpersonal communication” (Gunderson et al. Reference Gunderson, Theiss, Wood and Conti-O’Hare2014, 338; Short, Williams, and Christie Reference Short, Williams and Christie1976). We can chat with our students in real time in diverse ways, ranging from emojis and hashtags to peer-reviewed course material. It is the best of their world combined with the best of ours. In fact, we now spend more time than before engaging with students.

Using Slack also reoriented our course time. Lectures are shorter, with two 30-minute lectures instead of a single 2-hour in-person lecture, which frees up time to log into Slack. Also, we genuinely enjoy Slack because students are posting various types of relevant discussion, information, articles, and funny insights into our world of environmental policy. Slack is time well spent as both instructor and researcher.