Teaching Your Class

The needs of online students and evidence-based practices for online education are continually evolving. Below are some resources to  support effective online teaching and for additional training and support.

Effective Online Teaching Recommendations-See this resource for recommendations on effective online course facilitation. 

For Further Reading:

Creating an Effective Online Instructor Presence

Leibold, Nancyruth and Laura Marie Schwarz. “The Art of Giving Online Feedback." Journal of Effective Teaching, vol. 15, no. 1, 2015, p. 34-46.

Martin, Florence, Chuang Wang, and Ayesha Sadaf. “Facilitation Matters: Instructor Perception of Helpfulness of Facilitation Strategies in Online Courses.” Online Learning, vol. 24, no. 1, 2020, p. 28-49.

Florence, Martin and Doris U Bolliger. “Engagement Matters: Student Perceptions on the Importance of Engagement Strategies in the Online Learning Environment.” Online Learning, vol. 22, no.1, 2018, p. 205-222. 

Teach Online: Instructor Presence

Teach Online: Providing Valuable Feedback: What is it and How to Provide it at Scale

Teaching Toolkit: Instructor Presence

Where Can I Learn More?

LearnX: Intro to Canvas

LearnX: Active Learning

Enterprise Technology Learning Experience Resources  and Workshop Calendar

To help students make connections about what they are learning, consider posting a weekly announcement or video that recaps major points from previous lessons and contextualizes the upcoming module content and learning activities. It may be helpful to provide additional feedback 2-3 times throughout the week to increase your presence in the course for students. General, helpful guidance includes:

Summary of Expectations: 

Provide guidance for the next lesson/module and reiterate expectations. Additionally, you might provide useful tips for reading and completing assignments for students as they progress through the content. Reminders of specific due dates and any expectations for upcoming assignments are helpful as well, especially if there are any changes. 

Performance Feedback: 

Review general comments about class performance and address common questions or struggles you may have noticed in the previous lesson/module assignments and discussions. Include any tips for improvement or any relevant words of encouragement. Regularly remind students that they can reach out to you for additional assistance at any time. 

Timeline for grading:

It is important for students to receive timely feedback so they can apply what they are learning to future learning tasks and make improvements to upcoming assignments. Ideally, feedback on assignments in an accelerated course should be provided within 72 hours to one week of the due date. It can be helpful to notify students of your plans for returning feedback and updating your progress, especially if you become delayed. That way, students know when they can reasonably expect to receive their grade/feedback.  Standard verbiage in an ASU Online syllabus states feedback will be returned within 72 hours. Be sure to update that language with your preferred policy if that is not the reasonable expectation for all assignments in your class. 

Tips for providing effective feedback:

• • Be encouraging by offering both positive and corrective feedback.

  • Ensure the amount and type of feedback provided to students is proportional to the complexity of the task assigned. Use your professional judgment to determine the most balanced and fair amount of feedback to provide students based on the value and significance of assignments. Students who receive regular, timely, substantive feedback on their assignments report greater learning and satisfaction/engagement with their online courses.

  • Use of rubrics is highly encouraged to help standardize evaluation criteria and help students understand exactly how their work is being evaluated. An ASU instructional designer can assist you with rubric design if you have questions about creating rubrics in Canvas.

  • Submit grades and feedback to students through the Canvas gradebook as this provides the most secure method for students to receive grade information.  The Canvas Speedgrader has many helpful tools for marking work directly in the LMS.  Review the Speedgrader Canvas Guide for additional information. 

Turnitin

Instructors have the ability to enable Turnitin, ASU's plagiarism detection software, on individual assignments. Canvas will automatically flag assignments with originality reports in the gradebook. Visit Turnitin Help for additional information on viewing and interpreting originality/similarity reports. 

NOTE: If you have questions about reading and interpreting the reports and making a determination about how to proceed, please review the Academic Integrity Policy and steps for handling suspected academic integrity violations on the Resources tab. 

All ASU Online courses have some element of discussion, though how much and its purpose can vary from class to class. A common question faculty have is, do I have to respond to every discussion post? The answer to that is no. Some classes are very large and it would be impossible to do that even with a grader.

That being said, the discussion is an important place for you to make your presence visible to students and students value discussion much more when you participate.

Here are some practices to consider as you use your professional judgement in deciding what makes the most sense for your class, especially if you have a large class.

1. Prioritize which discussion questions are most important to individually respond to. To do this, it is important to understand how the discussion functions in your class. For example, in some classes, a discussion question may be the place where students receive feedback on their essay topic or thesis. This is a good example of when you would want to make sure you or a grader responds to each student. Look ahead at the discussion in your class to make such decisions.

2.  Schedule your responses to make sure each student receives an individual response from you at some point during the class. For example, select 20 student posts to respond to for discussion 1. Select 20 different students for discussion 2, etc. Accompany this by an announcement with global feedback on important takeaways from the discussion so students both see you present on the discussion board and know that you are reading their posts, even if you are not responding to all of them individually each time.

3. Communicate your plans to students. Tell students how you plan to participate in discussion and why. This transparency helps set expectations for students.

4. Interact with the posts in different ways. Utilize features such as “liking” in Canvas or Yellowdig, or awarding accolades in Yellowdig to signal to students you are reading their posts.

An Academic Status Report (ASR) is an important university mechanism for providing feedback to students regarding their progress in a course. When you submit an ASR, students receive a notice on their MyASU page and will be contacted by their ASU Online Success Coach and/or adviser to determine if additional support is needed.

All faculty receive an email from ASU with information on how to submit the report via MyASU.  Because online classes are accelerated, it is very important that students receive feedback regarding their performance early and often. The ASR system is now always open during a session so you can submit a report at any time. Please submit a report for students who do not participate during the first week of class or as soon as you notice they are struggling. You can also submit them periodically (weekly, after a major assignment) as necessary.  

See the ASR Information for instructions and additional recommendations for submitting reports.

Please review the Resources tab for additional information on addressing issues that may arise during your course such as suspected academic integrity violations, potential conduct violations, or issues related to student health and wellness.