5 Ways to Connect With Online Students
By Flower Darby
Faculty Focus
I鈥檇 been teaching online courses for 10 years 鈥� and, I liked to think, had become quite efficient and effective in the format 鈥� on the day it dawned on me that I was treating my online students as if they weren鈥檛 actually people.
Most of my university鈥檚 courses, in normal times, are offered in buildings, not online, and I teach in both realms. My epiphany came in March 2018, when a student I鈥檒l call 鈥淟ori鈥� emailed to explain why she hadn鈥檛 followed directions on an assignment. I鈥檇 required students to submit a quick video of themselves, but she鈥檇 posted an audio with her photo attached. In the week before the due date, she explained, she鈥檇 been beaten up by an ex-boyfriend. With a swollen and bruised face, she鈥檇 been too embarrassed to post a video. And without knowing the back story, I鈥檇 docked her grade.
Clearly, my well-intentioned effort to 鈥渃reate community鈥� online 鈥� by requiring students to show their faces so we could get to know one another 鈥� had backfired. I realized I鈥檇 been treating my online students as names on a screen, grading tasks on a to-do list, rather than as people with varied life circumstances. I subsequently changed the assignment to聽encourage but not require聽students to show their faces in videos. And I changed my thinking about how I interact with online students.
As higher education prepares for a fall semester that will be聽entirely or partly online, amid Covid-19, many of you are taking the opportunity to聽improve your online-teaching skills. Helping you do that is the aim of聽this series. Today鈥檚 topic is among the most crucial: how to connect with online students as people.
