Communication

We have parents to communicate with and because they are often the aids for the students we need to be able to provide them with clear expectations, boundaries and tutorial media to ensure that they can help their kids. So emails, texts, conference videos and phone calls are your go to methods. Every parent is different, and you will soon find the method that works best with each parent.

You also need to communicate with your students. Depending on the age of your student a good suggestion is 4 points of contact (email ,text, phone/web conferencing).

Make your office hours clear… virtual learning is not eLearning, it is not 24/7 and you are not expected to respond to communications outside of work hours. If people want to get a hold of you then they may book your office hours using something like www.calendly.com .

Ensure that you can provide support for students and families- provide them with a list of contacts with who to go to for what (is it a tech issue, go here, is it a counselling issue go here)

File management is a big part of online work, so make sure that your housekeeping is in order. Look at other examples of how instructors organize and name their files. It will make your life much easier if you know where things are and what they are.

Each day you should communicate with your whole class, this gives you the opportunity to build a rapport with your students as a whole. Then work with smaller group communication (if applicable, breakout rooms are great for this), then individual, and make sure that you take time to meet with each individual student every week.

Prepare an FAQ outlining all the details of how the class will function and make it easy to find.