Tips for Success
Student Support:
There are two specific elements to student support that I would like to highlight here. The first is that student support is regulation, that is rules and laws in place to protect the student's rights and the long held integrity of academia. Two examples of these are the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), which protects students' grades and records and Plagiarism, which ensures the honesty and academic professionalism that should be awarded to every author. I would like to make an insert here about FERPA. Many of the colleges I have worked at require FERPA training, yet it is an easy law to violate. Case in point, I had a colleague (another faculty member) call me up one time asking what her daughter received for her grade last quarter. This is an extreme situation, but, again, easy to do.
Student support can also be the support and aid that we provide our students, such as office hours, additional resources, campus tutoring, campus advising, etc. I am very fond of the Online Tutoring and am constantly encouraging my students to take advantage of this. I find that it dramatically improves their grammar and sentence structure. Another vital student support aid is the syllabus.
The Syllabus:
As I tell my students on their first day, the syllabus is our contract, the written agreement between instructor and students. It tells the students what I will teach them, the toolkit the course will give them to help them succeed in college and the workforce (i.e. the course objectives). It also gives a detailed explanation of how they will be tested on their toolkit and how they will be graded (i.e. grading rubrics). As well as my availability to help them and so on. This is my end of the agreement as the instructor. For the students' end, it is their acknowledgment and understanding that this is what they will come out of the course knowing and will receive the grade according to that knowledge. There are many different elements to the syllabus (instructor bio, course description, course schedule, due dates, and various policies), but it is the idea and concept of the syllabus that I find the most significant to point out here. It is important to have this understanding between the instructor and students so that everyone knows what is expected of them.
Expectations in the Online Classroom:
Alight, I'll make this one brief with just a few examples. E-mails and phone calls are very important in the online classroom because students need that constant interaction with their instructor for success. Reasonably quick feedback and grading is also critical to keeping the students on schedule with both the course assignments and learning the course objectives.
I also stand by my Tips for Success announcement that I put up at the beginning of the course which outlines what to focus on in the reading and completing assignments (such as citations, reading the syllabus, length requirements).
Christina, I can agree with the methods used for online learning. Its takes dedication on the instructors part to ensure and enhance the students learning ability for success.
Great post!
Loriann
Christina, you made a well stated and comprehensive point.
In terms of leveraging success for both the instructor and students I would like to emphasize the point of consistent and frequent communication.
Maintaining engagement in a traditional face to face learning environment can be tasking and demonstrates that even more effort is needed in the asynchronous format.
Most students show optimal engagement at the beginning of the course however, this enthusiasm and connectivity usually begins to wane as the course progresses.
One tip that I would suggest for encouraging active engagement and maintaining student interest that I employ in my online course delivery is the use of weekly commentary emails.
A friendly email at the beginning of each week that is designed to motivate, inform and prompt the student to think about key ideas dealing with the topic to be treated for that week, deliverables and other activities goes a long way in keeping a student tuned in.
The weekly email is personalized and students can appreciate that the instructor is willing to take the time contact them specifically outside routine responses and the online classroom. It definitely keeps students engaged and even encourages them to log into the classroom and take a look at items I may have referenced in the email.
I also use the weekly emails to send out media files and additional resources that students may miss if left in the online classroom environment only. The email commentary also encourages students to provide feedback regarding their progress and learning outcomes. The student finds it easier to respond to an email that was sent to them, than say starting a conversation independently.
In summary, I believe it is a good practice that improves student-instructor interaction. The students become accustomed to the commentary and look forward to the ideas shared. In turn, this ultimately keeps the student engaged over the long haul.
Christina,
Very thorough and well stated. Thank you for your contribution.
Dr. S. David Vaillancourt
