Asynchronous interaction

Asynchronous interaction is social interaction on part of a learner that does not happen in real time. It can be turn based, or occur at staggered, scheduled, or unexpected timeframes.

Definition

An asynchronous interaction is a non-real-time social interaction from a participant in a learning environment. Asynchronous interactions between people do not occur at the same time (as opposed to synchronous interactions) but instead are staggered and can occur at unscheduled intervals. Although asynchronous social interactions existed before the advent of online learning (for instance, people used to write physical letters!), asynchronous interaction has become a dominant form of social interactions in online learning environments and products.

Additional Information

Asynchronous interactions are almost exclusively a part of online and blended/hybrid modes of learning. Face-to-face learning may use asynchronous interactions to some degree, but as people are physically present in the same place at the same time, the timing of interaction is by definition synchronous by default.

The expected timing of social interactions sets the tone for how people participate in a learning environment. In learning environments that allow asynchronous interaction, people can participate when they are willing or able. This provides a great deal of flexibility to the learner, especially coupled with not needing to be physically present in a face-to-face classroom. Online and distance learning has dramatically improved the ability for people to participate in learning experiences asynchronously, despite scheduling and location challenges.

In contrast, the use of synchronous interactions in digital learning environments set the expectation that participants all gather at the same time and interact together in real time.

Much research has been done over the last two decades about how to maximize the achievement of learning objectives and social learning benefits from asynchronous interactions in online learning. Specifically, social interactions are necessary to promote the essential component of social presence in online courses and learning experiences, or the degree to which learners feel like they are a part of a community or have a connection to their peers and teacher. Thus, maximizing social presence is valuable, as it has been repeatedly determined through research to be an important factor that promotes learning in online and asynchronous situations.

Some common methods of asynchronous interaction have been developed over the years for learners to interact with peers and instructors:

• Online discussion forums and communities
• Social media profiles, groups, and pages
• Collaborative document creation and editing (e.g., Google Docs)
• Collaborative media production (video, podcasts, wikis, presentations)
• Videogame playing and game-based learning
• Annotation, comments, and peer review on documents
• Email and physical (snail) mail
• Taking turns in an activity

It is important to not change the level of expectation between asynchronous and synchronous interactions once a course or program begins. This may cause frustration among learners who entered the learning exercise with the initial social interaction expectations.

Tips and Tricks

• Consider some questions about how online participants might interact asynchronously with each other with your learning product. Are there any social interactions in your product? Does the learner interact with the instructor, or their peers? How might timing be considered in this design?
• Think about the level of expected contribution and interaction from each participant for the activities that you expect them to perform. Are these realistic expectations given your audience and their needs?
• Think about how participants' interactions are dependent on other participants' interactions. For instance, if you require learners to reply to others' contributions, they must first have a contribution to comment on! You want to be aware of any dependencies like this, especially when assigning grades.

Related Concepts

• Synchronous interactions
• Online and distance learning
• Timing of Learning Experience (Scope)
• Social presence
• Setting of the learning experience

Examples

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External Resources

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