First Step- Connecting with your Students

Think back to when you were a new college student. Do you remember feeling intimidated, even a bit scared? Online education is no different. While the computer provides a bit of anonymity for the student, it also can create an enormous amount of confusion for a new student. Some LMS programs aren't the most user friendly.

One of the keys to keeping your students engaged in the class is to connect with them on a personal level. The greatest drawback to online education is how impersonal it can be. Courses are designed for efficiency, not socializing. Most online courses attempt to integrate some sort of social aspect beyond just the required class discussions, but these tend to fail unless the instructor directs them.

Following are some tips for connecting with students and helping them adjust to online education:

1. Have students post a bio and do your best to comment on each bio posted. In large classes, this may be difficult, but you should at least post in the bio thread that you've read them and that the class size prohibits responding to them individually.

2. At the end of the first week, email any students who have not yet participated to see if they are experiencing problems with the course. Sometimes students don't know what to do and are afraid to ask the instructor.

3. If one doesn't exist, create a social thread just for fun that students can post to. You can make it related to the course ( a writing course could have a fun discussion about great books everyone is reading), or you can make it simply a place to mingle and post things like a movie review, favorite recipe, and so on. This thread may be ignored, though, so as the instructor you should post to it regularly so students will jump in as well.

4. Have a picture of yourself with your bio, and invite students to post a picture of themselves with their bio. This helps both you and them view each other as more than just screen names.

5. Finally, create an introductory podcast so students can hear your voice. I like to post a short weekly lecture this way as well. It helps if you can refer to other student's posts in your podcast, as it helps reinforce you are paying attention. This does make it harder to re-use the podcast for other courses, though, so it depends on how much time you can devote to your course.

These are just a few. I'd love to hear other suggestions as well!