On a Daily Basis Throughout the Course
How often you check the class is an individual decision, but you should let your students know, up front, how often they can expect to hear from you. Checking in at least once each class day and once over the weekend is a good way to keep in touch and to keep the e-mail and discussion forums from piling too high!
Be present and visible in your course per the expectations you established in the first few days of class.
Participate in discussion activities with a balanced approach. Try to steer the conversation to keep it on task, yet not stifle it too early with authoritative or definitive posts that end the activity. Consider posting a ‘Summarizing Our Discussion’ thread at the conclusion of each discussion forum to highlight the connections students are making and to point out other connections the students may have missed. If you choose to, you can subscribe to discussion forums. “Subscribe” allows users to “subscribe” to either the forum or individual threads. Subscribe sends emails whenever a new post has been created. If Subscribe is enabled, you and your students have the option of having either the entire post or a link to the post emailed. NOTE: You will NOT be able to reply to the post via email but it is a way to be notified of class activity without actually logging into the class.
Monitor the class Messages or Email tool for new messages and respond promptly.
Provide regular and responsive feedback to students. Do this on an ongoing basis, but especially early in the class so that under-performing students have the opportunity to improve their work. For example, grades and feedback should be provided to students as soon as possible so students can incorporate your suggestions into their next graded assignment to improve the result.
Use the Announcements tool to notify students of important due dates, assignments, activities, or for basic feedback. But use it judiciously so that it doesn’t lose its effectiveness. For more extensive detailed feedback, use the discussion board. NOTE: Using the Announcements tool will provide a record of your communication to students within your course, something you may not have if just using email. In addition, you can re-use announcements in the next iteration.
Update your class schedule with any new or revised due dates. Send an announcement to inform the students of the update(s) if a date is revised.
Consider holding online office hours Giving your students a chance to communicate with you in real-time can help build strong relationships and motivate students to fully engage in the class. Some popular options for conducting live office hours with geographically dispersed students are:
Consider monitoring student participation and communicate to individuals through email if needed to encourage participation.
For more online teaching tips, please review the eCampus article Managing Your Online Course.
For more information, contact: eCampus at ecampus@uconn.edu