-Dr. Chris Gentile, Cognizeo Founder
Tip #1: Boost Your Social Presence
As online learning takes a more mainstream role in millions of students’ lives, the topic of maintaining student engagement is more important than ever now. For many online instructors, this is one of their biggest challenges. One great way to do that is to increase your social presence so students do not feel isolated. And it’s easier than you think. Here are some simple ways:
Use face-to-face interaction with your students via webcam as often as you can. Whether it’s one-on-one or by group, using Google Hangouts, Zoom, Skype or FaceTime, any opportunity to interact with your students on webcam goes a long way to reducing the sense of isolation.
Add a welcome video to your course to introduce yourself and personalize it in a way that will grab your students’ attention. Don’t be afraid to let students see your personality.
Update your welcome message to students. Make sure its tone is warm and inviting. Whether it’s a post on your LMS or a personalized email to your students, a welcome message is a great way to form an immediate connection and make your presence known.
Be sure your LMS includes a profile picture of yourself and encourage students to do the same.
Use the course announcement page to add glowing reviews or testimonials from students who took the course in the past.
Tip #2: Make Learning Active
K12 teachers and higher ed faculty constantly face the challenge of maintaining student engagement in their online courses. If you find that your students are disengaged, it’s likely a sign that your course lacks meaningful opportunities for active learning. You can overcome this and enhance the learning experience by incorporating meaningful ways for your students to interact with each other through the content. Here are some easy ways to build student-to-student activities into your course:
Design assignments and assessments around discussions and blogs. Not only is this a way for the student to engage directly with the course content, it’s also important in developing critical thinking skills and reinforcing peer collaboration.
Create instructional activities where students are required to work in teams or groups. This is critical for students in developing social presence and promotes collaboration through the use of a variety of different media. Most LMS’s have tools for creating and managing groups online. Use Google documents and shared Zoom break-out rooms.
Build a student discussion forum within your LMS for off-topic discussions that may be important for students. During face-to-face classes, off-topic discussions can be a normal part of course discourse and help to establish community.
Assign your online students to interview people working in the field, or to otherwise bring their learning out into the community where they live. Case studies, group projects, or gathering and analyzing local data are just a few of the many examples of active learning.
Post a collaborative wrap-up activity at the end of the course. It’s a great way to share feedback within the group and bring closure to the course.
Tip #3: Use Multiple Channels of Communication
As an online instructor, you have a valuable set of tools at your disposal for maintaining your social presence as a means of keeping your students engaged. Here are a few tips:
Utilize multiple channels of synchronous communication, e.g., chat features, IM and broadcast messaging and home page announcements to communicate with students. It connects you to your students and let’s them know you’re there. For longer communications, email your students directly.
Use Zoom, Google Hangouts, Skype and the collaboration features of your LMS to promote synchronous video communication.
Write topical blogs to post on your LMS or faculty web site.
Don’t forget to use video. Explanatory screencast videos tend to be well received by students, and are increasingly easy and inexpensive to create.
Tip #4: Create a Learning Community
When an online course includes an online community component, engagement increases as students feel like they are part of something.. Online students become more engaged when they have opportunities to connect with instructors and fellow students, discuss coursework, help each other through struggles, and share ideas. Here are a few tips for making that work.
Using social media channels to create and enable forums is the most popular way to establish communications for online communities. Create discussions on various topics and let your students have at it.
While the majority of Americans use Facebook and YouTube, Instagram is the favorite for people between the ages of 18 to 29.
Instagram hashtags can be a great way of building community online so people are motivated to engage with your course or your topics. If you’re new to hashtags, here is a video that will help https://youtu.be/Y_Rzh-DEbko
Utilize activity feeds on your LMS for general announcements, events, reminders, and more.
Encourage students to use your LMS’s mobile app so they can check their course on the go, get notifications, make use of the discussion channels, and stay in touch with their instructor and other students.
Tip #5 Make Learning Social
Learning is inherently a social activity. Many instructors use social media as ways to make learning social by engaging students in topical learning. Social platforms, if used effectively, can help build a sense of community which enables students to form positive social relationships and close ties with fellow students and faculty .Here are a few easy tips for doing this.
Consider adding Twitter and/or Instagram badges to your course homepage and then use hashtags to push posts with course-relevant content to your students.
Set up groups for your classes on social media platforms and let students have free rein.
Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram are all great platforms for collaboration. But, remember, Instagram is the favorite for people between the ages of 18 to 29.
Tip #6: Provide Regular Feedback
Feedback to students about their performance is extremely important in the effort to keep students engaged in their online learning journey. It helps students feel a sense of progress and connectedness. Here are a few tips to make sure you get it right.
Feedback that is detailed and positive in nature tends to be more effective than faint praise or unclear messages.
Be prompt in your responses to students’ assignments and activities.
Respond to discussion posts and email questions to help keep students on track for the next assignment or activity.
Use video every now and then to deliver feedback.
Be conscious of turnaround time.
Draw students out in discussions. Ask them to go further, elaborate, or think of the topic from another angle—anything that helps them revisit what they’ve learned and make it stick.
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