April 16, 2025 | By Louise Yarnall and Emily Vershay
Meghan McIntyre, a senior professor of mathematics at Wake Technical Community College in North Carolina, is no stranger to online learning or employing innovative strategies to engage her students. Meghan’s work with the Postsecondary Teaching with Technology Collaborative (the Collaborative) builds on her earlier efforts to improve online learning for her students. She is an advocate for self-directed learning and works toward fostering a positive and collaborative environment in her classroom through online group work.
Collaborative researcher Louise Yarnall and student fellow Emily Vershay talked with Meghan about her experience participating in the rapid cycle experiments conducted to refine the Collaborative’s strategies for improving online learning. These strategies include videos on sense of belonging, growth mindset, and time management; reflective prompts and exam wrappers to plan studies and reflect on progress; and Student-Peer Interaction & Networking (SPIN) activities that include an introductory survey of classmates, a group project, and online student resource sharing and support. Meghan shared insights from her implementation of these strategies and offered her thoughts on the future of online education and how instructors can encourage students to take more ownership of their academic journeys.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
Louise Yarnall: Why did you get involved with the Collaborative? What was calling to you on that?
Meghan McIntyre: I’m a person that always wants to be growing and learning and changing. I do not do well being stagnant. I can never teach a course the same way more than a couple of times before I need to do something different. This seemed like an exciting way to expand my repertoire and see what the most current effective things are to do with students, particularly in the online classroom. I think the world shifted during COVID and people don’t necessarily have the right expectation of what an online class really is now.
Yarnall: Over time, how have these strategies — video, prompts, and SPIN — evolved for you and how have you had to adjust your own work to incorporate these practices?
McIntyre: At the beginning, it felt a lot heavier because during the rapid cycle experiments, no one quite knew what was going on. We were still trying to experiment and figure it out, so it just felt like there was more burden. At first, I did the prompts every week and I think the students got tired of them. Now that we’re only doing them a couple times throughout the semester, it has a lot more impact. When it’s time to do it, the students are excited to get a free “100” for their homework grade if they take the time to do it, but they are taking it seriously and giving thoughtful answers.
McIntyre: I think group work is really important. I tell my students regularly I would not have made it through grad school without my friends and without working together and doing our homework together every single day. I really believe in it. There is a barrier to that collaboration online, both physical and time wise. I like SPIN because it gave me some fresh ideas and a renewed focus — just tweaking and trying different things. Instead of doing what I had been doing, it made me get out there a little bit and just do something a little bit differently.
Yarnall: Given that you were already committed to working in this area, what did you do differently with SPIN?
McIntyre: I think it was the group project and giving different members their own responsibility within the group project. When you split it up, it gives everyone a little bit more skin in the game. I do use group discussions and homework on a regular basis, and I do like grouping the students based on their [SPIN classmate introduction] surveys. I had not been serving the students to that level. This has probably been the most novel thing I’ve tried.
Yarnall: How has participating in the Collaborative changed the ways you interact with students online or approach instruction, both online and face-to-face?
McIntyre: I think it’s made me more intentional with what I do. I don’t know if any of it is necessarily all that new or different, but I’m putting more energy and more focus into making sure I do the things. You know, it’s easy when the semester gets busy to let some things slide and pick them up later. I feel like having the prompts and the videos and SPIN at the forefront makes sure they get done, and that does give the students the best experience.
Emily Vershay: Do you think SPIN interactions help the students feel a greater sense of belonging?
McIntyre: I do. And this semester the students have formed their own chat groups off Blackboard. In their reflections they’ll mention, “When I was working with my friend so and so in the class, we did such and such,” so I know they’re talking to each other and they’ve made those friends, but because they’re not doing it on Blackboard, I don’t see it happening. They seem excited about it, and they do seem to be working together.
Vershay: For self-directed learning skills in general, do you see your students taking the strategies and carrying them into future courses?
McIntyre: I would like to think so. With online classes, I lose that casual conversation with the students, so it’s hard to know what they’re really doing or not doing. For example, with the pre-test exam wrapper, I would like to think that they’re making a plan for what they need to study and what they feel comfortable with and what they don’t feel comfortable with and writing out their calendar. I would like to think that they would do that for other classes. Hopefully, they find it helpful and think, “This helped me for math class. I can do it for history and take it forward.”
Vershay: Do you think that those prompts have helped the students become more intentional about their learning? And do you have an example of a time students were demonstrating stronger planning or self-monitoring skills?
McIntyre: I do think some of them have taken it very seriously. And they’ll say things like, “I didn’t realize I’m going to be out of town this weekend. I need to go in and get my work done now so that it gets done.” With the classes online, I don’t have those casual “chit chat” conversations where I feel like you really learn how they’re approaching the class like you might have inside of a traditional classroom. The ones that are doing the prompts and watching the videos and putting forth effort are also putting forth effort on the assignments and are passing the class.
Vershay: If you could give students one piece of advice based on what you’ve learned from this program, what would it be?
McIntyre: It would probably be to sign into your learning management system daily. Get these announcements from your teachers. I feel like if students put forth effort on a daily basis just to read the announcements and think about their calendar, it would go a long way to getting everything accomplished.
Yarnall: Do you have any concrete stories where you realized you had made an impact on students — for example, maybe from student feedback or course evaluations?
McIntyre: I do remember something recent on the course evaluations. The student said that it was the first time they had been in an online class and didn’t feel like they were doing it alone. I think that is a huge testimony. That comment just struck me because it shows they’re connected. It probably is from doing all of the things that we are doing with them for this project, like SPIN. I don’t think it’s because I have better students. I think it’s because I’m doing different things in my classroom.
Yarnall: What do you think the potential is for engaging colleagues in this work?
McIntyre: I think there’s a lot of potential. They’re very willing and they want to make changes to their courses. I think it’ll be easy when we have our summer meetings to show them what I’ve been doing. I can show them that I’m finding a lot of success. I think we’ll be able to have a good conversation. I don’t think teaching students how to be their own advocate and to think for themselves is a hard thing to sell if people are willing to hear it out.
Yarnall: Is there any advice you have about how we can explain what we’re doing better to more faculty?
McIntyre: The intent is to honestly take the load off the faculty and put it on the students’ shoulders. I think at first there’s a little bit of a heavier load on the faculty because you’re trying to train up the students. But at the end of the day, it’s going to be a lighter load because the students are going to be more proactive, intentional, and know what they need to do and how they need to track down the materials that they need to do it.
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