Training and Professional Development

  • Preparing Your Online Course for Week One

    To establish a sense of community and “break the ice”, you should create and facilitate a “Class Introductions” Discussion Forum in HuskyCT. This is also a great way for you to get a feel for who the students are and what experience they bring to the class.

    1. Make your own “introduction” post to the class to get the ball rolling.
    2. Review the personal introductions that your students post to the class discussion forum and respond to each student personally to ensure students feel welcomed.
    3. Summarize the postings for your class sharing what you’ve learned about the class make-up and addressing their class expectations (e.g., “Several of you stated that you hoped to learn more about XYZ in this class. While we won’t be covering XYZ specifically, we will address the more general issue of…”)
    4. Minimize delays for students adding the course late to gain access to course materials.
    5. Redistribute student groups promptly when students drop or add.
    6. Point students to support information when needed, e.g., how to access course materials, drop the course, use publisher’s materials, or find help resources for HuskyCT/Blackboard.
    7. Contact students who have not yet accessed the HuskyCT site. In HuskyCT, you can easily see who has, and has not, accessed your class (see “Generating Course Reports” for instructions).  If a student hasn’t accessed the class yet, there may be a problem that needs your attention.

    NOTE: You need to contact missing students via email to their uconn.edu e-mail address (since they won’t see a HuskyCT message if they haven’t logged in yet!)

    For more information, contact: ecampus at ecampus@uconn.edu