Teaching Online Classes

Teaching an online course in similar to teaching an in-person course in many ways:

It is important to connect with students. Like an in-person course, you need to connect with your students in order to create a positive learning environment. But this is much more challenging when teaching online. Below are some tips for creating a connection with students online:

• Let students get to know you. Share your philosophy of teaching, your personal and professional interests, and your research. Include a picture or avatar as part of your online presence. You may also create a brief video introduction.
• Begin each week with a supportive email to students that provides an overview of the week's activities. Insert a comment about a current event or campus news that relates to your course to create a more personal connection.
• Narrate your slides with your own voice. Use a conversational tone and employ humor, anecdotes, examples, or storytelling. Panopto lecture capture allows you to narrate and captures video of you speaking while presenting your slides.
• Login to the course site several times during the week and indicating that you've been there via an announcement, an email, or a posting to the discussion.
• Anticipate questions that your students have and post a FAQ section. Consider having an open instant messenger site during the week for office hours.

A positive atmosphere makes a difference. This may be even more important for online learners, who often feel unsure of themselves when not getting in-person feedback.

• Creating a learner-centered environment can contribute to a more positive atmosphere.
• Provide support to students by helping them learn what skills they need to successfully complete your online course. Guidance on how to be self-directed and how to use good time management may be particularly important.

Show that you care by communicating consistently and often with students.

• Sending personal notes to students communicates caring. It can help to arrange a check-in with students a few times during the semester.
• Remember to listen to their concerns and make sure they feel heard.

Get students connected with each other. Creating an online collaborative community will enhance student engagement in the course.

• Have each student introduce themselves to the class.
• Include group work as a part of the course.
• Create discussion boards for class related and off-topic discussion, but don't feel like you need to be a part of every discussion. Allowing students to communicate with each other will also create course engagement.

Classroom Management. Similar to an in-person class, you will manage the processes, guidelines, academic standards, and assessments of your course, while maintaining a collaborative climate. But, it is important in an online class to share your expectations about communication at the beginning, since there are not opportunities for you to address communication faux pas in the moment. Here are some important nettiquite guidelines:

• Remember you are communicating with a human being.
• Behave online in the same way that you would in-person.
• Communication in the online classroom is different from other places in cyberspace.
• Respect other's time and bandwidth: be concise.
• Make yourself look good by using proper grammar and punctuation.
• Share your knowledge.
• Keep flame wars from escalating.
• Respect the privacy of your classmates.
• If you have advanced IT skills, don't abuse your power.
• Be kind when addressing others' mistakes.

Remember to manage your own time efficiently. You don't need to be available around the clock, but do find ways to check-in with students. Here are a few examples:

• Take attendance on the first day of class using a discussion board.
• Give a syllabus quiz.
• Create a discussion board where students can ask each other questions about the class.
• Be clear about your expectations for students, their responsibility for learning, assignment deadlines, and turn-around time for responses to questions and feedback on assignments.
• Use Blackboard messages to communicate with students about private matters. This will keep course-specific communications out of your general email and create a record of the conversation.
• Use online tools, such as view tracking in Blackboard, to be more efficient in tracking student involvement.
• Establish a routine for checking discussion boards and private messages.
• Use existing resources, such as YouTube and MERLOT, rather than creating new content.

References

Dreon, O. (2013). Tips for building social presence in your online class. Faculty Focus. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/tips-for-building-...

Raines, D. A. (2011). Be efficient, not busy: Time management strategies for online teaching. Faculty Focus. Retrieved from http://www.facultyfocus.com/articles/online-education/be-efficient-not-b...

Ross, S. T. (2011). The core rules of netiquette. Retrieved from http://www.albion.com/netiquette/corerules.html