It’s that time of year again! Eager students are figuring out who you are and what they’re going to learn in your course. You’re reading and meaningfully responding their introduction discussion posts. You’re utilizing various methods to communicate your expectations of them. Your online course has just started.
Here are a few tips to help you make the most of the first few weeks of your online course:
- Tips for Using Announcements to Connect with Students
In this guest post by Dr. Fred Kolb, he describes how he uses announcements to build his instructor presence in the course. He provides several concrete examples that you can even use in your online class! - The Art & Science of Quality Course Announcements: How to Avoid the Trap of the Info Dump
This Faculty Focus article provides suggestions for creating news posts that are informative and engaging for students. Some of the tips include:- Focus on one main idea in each announcement
- Use bullet points
- Create instructional videos and embed them into your announcement
- Encourage students
- Three Tips to Make the Most of Introduction Activities
This blog post shares some ideas for jazzing up your introduction discussions to make them fun opportunities for everyone to get to know each other. - How to Foster Critical Thinking, Student Engagement in Online Discussions
This Faculty Focus article shares best practices for constructing higher-level discussion questions, tips for communicating expectations, and suggestions for jump-starting a dull discussion.
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