Hi Michael, I agree. I have my faculty do three proactive communications to reach out to learners and after that, they can stop the communications and focus on the engaged learners. Tina
I would have to agree with the comments made by Michael, up at the top of the threads. To a certain extent, you are limited in what you can do to reach out to a student who has stopped participating. When I find a student (or students) like this, I may send out a general email to the entire class, with suggestions on different ways that they can interact and contribute to the classwork. The hope is, that by sending out a general note, the non engaged student will not feel as if they are being singled out. If they take the time to read through my email, they may find themselves attracted to one of the options I have presented, and they may respond to that approach. I also have to continually remind myself that a student's lack of interaction may be because of a serious situation. I received a note from a student just this week who explained that the reason they were not in attendance much was because they had gone into the hospital for emergency surgery. This incident reminded me that I should always give the student the benefit of the doubt, and not be quick to criticize a perceived lack of interest on their part.
I would have to agree with the comments made by Michael, up at the top of the threads. To a certain extent, you are limited in what you can do to reach out to a student who has stopped participating. When I find a student (or students) like this, I may send out a general email to the entire class, with suggestions on different ways that they can interact and contribute to the classwork. The hope is, that by sending out a general note, the non engaged student will not feel as if they are being singled out. If they take the time to read through my email, they may find themselves attracted to one of the options I have presented, and they may respond to that approach. I also have to continually remind myself that a student's lack of interaction may be because of a serious situation. I received a note from a student just this week who explained that the reason they were not in attendance much was because they had gone into the hospital for emergency surgery. This incident reminded me that I should always give the student the benefit of the doubt, and not be quick to criticize a perceived lack of interest on their part.
I tend to agree but that does not mean I would give up on the student. I recently had a student who kept promising work and the deadlines would pass. I would keep putting it back to her and made sure she understood she was repsonsible for the work but that I was here to support her. Sometimes students will respond and sometimes they will not but you can't stop trying.
This is a hard one. I suppose I have to give a qualified response. I agree, with qualifications.
I've run into it the situation where some students excel, while others fall behind. They fall so far behind that they can be in danger of failing the class. I send them personalized emails explaining that they have missing assignments or are in danger of failing and ask them to contact me. I make myself available for one on one sessions with them.
The students that have excelled don't necessarily like that. They see education as a competitive process where some win and some lose. To be fair, I recognize that I still must continue to put out the same effort during class, and keep up the pace of instruction.
So, while I do make strong efforts to help those that have fallen behind. I know that I have limited time and energy. At some point, if my efforts do not result in higher performance, I suppose that I have to move on. In short it's really not very easy at all to manage this situation.
Hi Jody, I agree that there are a number of ways that learners seek support but it is important for the instructor to understand what support the learners are needing and using to better support them. Tina
I disagree, there are so many different ways for the student to get help within the online learning environment. If the instructor can't get a hold of the student, I am sure there is someone at the school who can, or the student might be seeking help through tutoring, or another sorce.
Hi Shellie, you make an excellent point about using different strategies to reach out to learners. I encourage instructors to connect with learners via telephone because they can communicate their concern and support to the learner more clearly. In addition, we have used supplemental instruction with peer learners because sometimes learners can more easily reach out to a peer instead of an instructor. Tina
Hi Brian, one of the biggest challenges our instructors have is getting struggling learners to contact them. We have tried building relationships with learners early in the course using a lounge discussion thread to get to know learners better with the hope that when or if they begin to struggle they may be more likely to reach out. So far, we have had some success, but we are continuously searching for new ways to reach struggling learners. We are also considering a study session each week that is live, so learners can get help. Tina
Sometimes there really isn't anything an instructor can do. We all see messages from students who have intense personal situations and I have to assume that there are plenty of students who prefer to keep those personal situations to themselves, rather that share with an instructor. That said, sometimes what a student needs is an offer of help in a different form. For instance, maybe she is overwhelmed with all the text-based communications but would respond if she's offered a phone call. Or maybe she would like to be shown something instead of just told. Maybe she would respond well to being connected with another student. Sometimes students respond to an invitation to say what it is that's making the course not work for them.
Because students are online at different times of the day and night, it is challenging to connect with those who are struggling with the course. Online instructors should make every effort to connect with students who are struggling with the subject matter. I do believe that it's imperative that students learn how to approach their instructors when they are having a difficult time. College not only an environment of learning course material, it is also an environment of learning how to approach leaders/supervisors/those in authority.
Hi Marie, one of the complaints I get from my faculty in psychology is that they spend too much time trying to reach out to learners and it takes time away from the learners who are engaged in the course. We have moved to a process of sending 3 communications to learners to try to get them to engage and after that, they are no longer obligated to continue to try to reach out to the learner. Tina
Angela,
I do the same as you and reach out to the student, but I also agree with Tina. Sometimes you try everything and they just don't engage. We even give them an option for an incomplete where they can get caught up on their assignments in a two week period. If they don't show initiative, then we have to give them the grade they earned which could be an F.
From my experiences I just keep trying to reach the student. I believe the student needs to feel that you care. Sometimes they have extenuating personal circumstances that cause them to not submit their assignments on time or at all. I have had one or two of these students in each class I have taught so far. If I don't hear from the student, I have to contact the academic advisor and get them involved. Sometimes they know the circumstances better than I do and will share that with me so I can offer my assistance. I am always willing to work with the student and I always tell them having a late assignment is better than getting a 0. I do agree that there is little more that you can do if the student isn't willing to help themselves, but I keep trying until the session is done. If they don't try or get with me, I would have to fail them. I really hate doing that. I think failing the student is the most difficult part of teaching, but sometimes you can't do any more.
We do the same thing at my institution! Tina
I disagree. At my institution, students are paired with an academic advisor. If my attempts at assisting the student appear to be unfruitful, then I contact the student advisor and try to collaborate efforts to assist the student in the course.
Hi Jenny, one of the ways we have been trying to support learners is by developing more visual representations of the course content. We are trying to organize content using different types of graphical organizers to help learners visually represent and organize information for improved learning. Tina
I think that an instructor can continue to address the issue by explaining the consequences to a lack of participation and effort. I also think that the instructor can encourage students by attempting to engage different learning styles through various types of activities and assignments. If a course is strongly slanted toward one type of learning style, that might explain the reluctance of some students to get involved.
Hi Angela, at the university I work at, we are working so hard to reach out to disengaged learners but it seems that no what how much outreach we do, we can not get them to respond to our communications and re-engage in the course. My faculty are frustrated because of the amount of time they spend in outreach that takes time away from the learners who are engaged! We have moved to a 3-step proactive communication strategy. After three attempts to re-engage the learner, we let the learner know that there is nothing further we can do to help them because they have not responded to our outreach and we then disengaged from the outreach. Tina
