next »

[zuzu_]

My on-campus students love me. I have a tough-but-fair reputation, and tons of "repeat business." Students who get Cs in my first course clamor to sign up for the next one.

My online students hate me. I know my course is clear and well organized and as user-friendly as possible. I reply to all messages within a few hours. I have creative, engaging material. I try to convey an affable personality in all course documents and messages. My firm deadlines, challenging-yet-reasonable coursework, and fair grading mirrors what I do in my on campus courses. I have taken courses in online pedagogy and I have several years experience with online teaching. I do everything I am supposed to do, and they still hate me.

And I can't just say f'em. I am not tenured, and I am at a small CC that is very concerned with "student success." And in all honesty, I don't want to say f'em. I want them to love my courses yet still be challenged. How come I can do this magnificently in person but not online?

[larryc]

I have taught the US history surveys online at least 50 times. My evaluations for the online courses are lower than my classroom evals, but not much lower. Here are some things that I do:

1. Scare the hell out of them the first week. My syllabus talks about what a tough course it is, the 30-40% DFW rate, the hours of study needed each week to pass.

2. Have an area where students introduce themselves and respond to every single introduction (160 last semester!). "Welcome to class Billy. You say you are a music major--who are your favorite composers?" etc.

3. Post lots of announcements--sometimes study tips, sometimes cartoons, sometimes exhortations of the "You can do it!" variety. (At this point these are mostly recycled from previous semesters, but that is our secret.)

4. Whimsy. Did you know you can post a YouTube Video so that it will play right on the Announcements page of Blackboard? Last year I started "YouTube Tuesday" in my online classes in which I feature a light hearted and silly video, related to course content when possible. Bugs Bunny, clips from popular historical films, funny commercials with a historical reference, whatever.

Every quiz ends with a "joke" question that is easy points (and that contains the secret HTML "no print/copy" command!) The first quiz has a picture of my son in his Halloween costume. "This is Dr. C's son--isn't he good looking kid?" The answers range from "Yes, he is the cutest boy I have ever seen in my life (correct answer)" to "Yikes--bet you have to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dog to play with him!"

5. Show compassion. I send a mass email to everyone who fails the first test--"hey what happened, you might try this and this, I want you to succeed, etc etc." Have strict deadlines for everything on paper but grant extensions right and left in private.

That is all I can think of right now.

[zuzu_]

larryc--I do pretty much everything you mention, except for #4.

Whimsy. So maybe that's what's missing....

[patchouli]

Wow, thank you, Larry.  The timing couldn't have been better for me, as I am new at this . . .Guess I know what I'll be doing this weekend!

I have taught the US history surveys online at least 50 times. My evaluations for the online courses are lower than my classroom evals, but not much lower. Here are some things that I do:

1. Scare the hell out of them the first week. My syllabus talks about what a tough course it is, the 30-40% DFW rate, the hours of study needed each week to pass.

2. Have an area where students introduce themselves and respond to every single introduction (160 last semester!). "Welcome to class Billy. You say you are a music major--who are your favorite composers?" etc.

3. Post lots of announcements--sometimes study tips, sometimes cartoons, sometimes exhortations of the "You can do it!" variety. (At this point these are mostly recycled from previous semesters, but that is our secret.)

4. Whimsy. Did you know you can post a YouTube Video so that it will play right on the Announcements page of Blackboard? Last year I started "YouTube Tuesday" in my online classes in which I feature a light hearted and silly video, related to course content when possible. Bugs Bunny, clips from popular historical films, funny commercials with a historical reference, whatever.

Every quiz ends with a "joke" question that is easy points (and that contains the secret HTML "no print/copy" command!) The first quiz has a picture of my son in his Halloween costume. "This is Dr. C's son--isn't he good looking kid?" The answers range from "Yes, he is the cutest boy I have ever seen in my life (correct answer)" to "Yikes--bet you have to tie a pork chop around his neck to get the dog to play with him!"

5. Show compassion. I send a mass email to everyone who fails the first test--"hey what happened, you might try this and this, I want you to succeed, etc etc." Have strict deadlines for everything on paper but grant extensions right and left in private.

That is all I can think of right now.

[zuzu_]

OK, I  just sent this to my online students:http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail64.html

Now that's whimsy. Let's see if it works.

[patchouli]

Love the video.  I'd like to know their reactions?!

[enseigner]

2. Have an area where students introduce themselves and respond to every single introduction (160 last semester!). "Welcome to class Billy. You say you are a music major--who are your favorite composers?" etc.

Hi larryc,

I haven't seen this tip before ... could you expand upon why you do it?  Just curious.

Thanks!
Enseigner

[larryc]

I did it as a whim one semester and was surprised to read positive mention of it in quite a few of the student evaluations at the end of the semester. They felt like I care about them as individuals, instead of seeing me as an impersonal grading robot. I think it really sets a nice tome for the start of the semester.

[onilne_adjunct]

2. Have an area where students introduce themselves and respond to every single introduction (160 last semester!). "Welcome to class Billy. You say you are a music major--who are your favorite composers?" etc.

Hi larryc,

I haven't seen this tip before ... could you expand upon why you do it?  Just curious.

Thanks!
Enseigner

Enseigner, I've been doing it for years, ever since I started teaching online (it's one of those little things you pick up).  I believe you'll also find this somewhere in the fora if you search hard enough (sorry, too busy to do it for you right now). 

It's a great tool to get the students participating immediately - it draws them out.  I always try to make a personal connection so the students think I'm human.  For example, let's say you like fly fishing and you post it in your faculty page as part of your bio.  A student might put in his brief bio that s/he likes fishing as a hobby.  You can then ask "where and what type?" which will illicit a further response.  To this day I get e-mails from students past (years past, some of whom I've completely forgotton) that will e-mail me a picture of a fish they caught.

OA

[crazybatlady]

What's this about secret html code that keeps students from printing the page? That sounds like something worth knowing about. Larry, can you share?

cbl

[patchouli]

I have been doing something just like this after reading Larry's recommendation.  It's working nicely.

I did it as a whim one semester and was surprised to read positive mention of it in quite a few of the student evaluations at the end of the semester. They felt like I care about them as individuals, instead of seeing me as an impersonal grading robot. I think it really sets a nice tome for the start of the semester.

[kohelet]

My colleagues and I all include a discussion forum devoted to nothing but off-topic topics.  Kind of like the "meet and greet" forum here.  We call it stuff like "the hallway," "the water cooler," etc.  We have everyone introduce themselves there, but then we keep the discussions going throughout the semester.  This gives you a chance to "hang out" (virtually) with your students, and it goes a long way toward building an online learning community.  Students say they really miss it when the semester ends.

(I just wrote "online learning community."  I guess I've drunk the koolaid.  The teaching resource center people here would be so proud.)

2. Have an area where students introduce themselves and respond to every single introduction (160 last semester!). "Welcome to class Billy. You say you are a music major--who are your favorite composers?" etc.

Hi larryc,

I haven't seen this tip before ... could you expand upon why you do it?  Just curious.

Thanks!
Enseigner

[magistra]

I've also had good luck with giving feedback early on about require discussion posts.  Several students told me that they'd taken lots of on-line courses and had never before known how they were graded.  In general, it seems to be the lack of one-on-one contact of any sort that brings about the disconnect; anything you can do to make contact early on will help.

If time permits, I'd also suggest that you e-mail students who miss assignments before the withdrawal date.  Sometimes a simple reminder will do the trick.

[zuzu_]

Love the video.  I'd like to know their reactions?!

So far, only one (excellent) student emailed me a LOL saying "How did you know I wanted to go play video games?" I hope he's as good at writing evals as he is in the dicussion forums.

Another student stopped by my office and mentioned in passing that she appreciated the helpful link I sent. Obviously, she didn't actually click on it.

Dead silence from the rest of the class. They hate me. I can only hope they'll mention how cool it was in their evals.

[makor77]

I don't know if my online students hate me or not, but I don't think they like me as much as my f2f students do.  I sort of relish it, though.  I think I'm too easy in my f2f classes sometimes, but since I don't see their sad faces in my online classes I have an easier time being tough.  It's helping me learn to be tougher in my f2f classes.  I think the success that I do have in my online classes is from the one on one contact and the attempt to engage them personally as well as educationally.  I do a lot of what Larryc does.  It just seemed logical to me to have a place where we introduce ourselves.  It never occurred to me not to.  After all, I do that on the first day of f2f classes.  I also have a current events board.  This applies in my field, and it is great for them to have a place to talk about whatever interests them in current events.  I post to clear up factual errors and to further discussion.  You shouldn't be so hard on yourself though.  The nature of students who take online classes is sometimes different, and they may just be more unenthused about school.  It may not be you.  I think some of mine online probably dislike me, but online classes will never allow the sort of relationships that I develop with my f2f students.