When you start the semester, make sure you make the students feel welcome. Send them a personal welcome. Introduce yourself and include a picture or short video. It is important to get your students’ interest from the start, so put your friendliest self out there!
During the course, continue to stay in contact. Here are some methods for how you can stay present in your course and suggestions on how they work best:
- Course Announcements – Handy for keeping everyone in the class together, and for providing general course guidance and feedback. They can be written and scheduled in advance, and they stay available in the course announcements area of the course.
- Email/Canvas Conversations – When you need to contact individuals or groups of students, use the Email (Inbox) tool. If you’re contacting the whole class, course announcements are a better choice.
- Recordings – It could be a video with your webcam or phone using the Canvas video tool, Zoom, Kaltura, or a VoiceThread. Recordings is a good way for you to contribute to your students’ learning and create a more personal connection.
- Video Conferencing (Zoom) – This could be for adding live class sessions, recordings, or office hours.
- Discussion Boards – Be a part of the discussion. Your contributions let students know you’re there and can spark further conversation.
- Blogs – Some courses make use of blogs. Similar to discussions, these can also be great avenues to increase community interaction.
As the class winds down, send them a wrap-up letter commenting on what you came away with from the course as well as best wishes for their future endeavors. Instructors who are engaged socially in an online course engage their students as well.
References Horton, W. (2000). Designing web-based training. New York: John Wiley & Sons.