Initial teacher education in online spaces: using interpersonal meaning making resources to build relationships and improve engagement

Online learning is a well-established mode for initial and ongoing teacher education. However, while models of both effective online learning and teacher professional development abound, technology-mediated learning at a distance continues to face challenges to participant engagement. In particular, the critical need to build and maintain relationships in learning is complicated by the geographic and temporal distribution of online participants as well as the nuances of the technology in use. Online learning occurs in collaborative text-spaces within learning management systems, social media spaces and their attendant learning objects such as forums. As such, persistent challenges to engagement in online PLD may be met by considering the language-based interpersonal affordances of these text-spaces. This paper presents a case study of the use of evaluative language resources by one teacher educator to engage initial teacher education students in online learning. Appraisal analysis of weekly forum posts across three iterations of a unit of study shows how a change in language choices positively impacted on student experience. This illuminates the relationship between online learning design and language, and how judicious use of the meaning-making resources associated with the interpersonal metafunction can be used to improve online participant engagement.