Dr. Amar Kanekar, professor and graduate coordinator of the Health Education/Health Promotion program at UA Little Rock, has published a new book chapter aimed at helping college educators keep online students actively engaged in learning.

The book chapter, “Group-based learning: An Innovative Practice for Engaged Learning in an Online Environment,” was published in August in the book, “ICT and Innovation in Teaching Learning Methods in Higher Education” by Emerald Insight.

Kanekar has been teaching online and researching his experience with online education for more than a decade. With the constant rise in online learning, Kanekar wanted to share his knowledge of using group-based learning projects to engage online students.

“The entire chapter contains tips and tricks for higher education instructors about the use of group-based teaching and how it helps online learners,” Kanekar said. “It will be very useful for anyone who wants to design online group projects that engage students with active learning.”

Kanekar’s book chapter includes a comprehensive prototype application of a group-based learning project for an online class as well as some examples of rubrics designed by instructors to assess a group-based learning project.

Additionally, the chapter discusses the roles of instructors and students in group-based learning, the challenges of group-based learning in an online class, and how instructors can utilize social media to design group-based learning projects.