Small Teaching Online  Part 2 Videos

Require peer-to-peer interactions in your class. This can take the form of online discussion boards, small-group discussions ore projects, and having students record brief introduction videos and respond to each others to get to know each other a bit. 

Show up to class as often as you are able.  The more we participate in class, the more our students will too.  Post frequent announcements, engage with students in online discussions, and provide feedback on assessments in a timely way.  When our students see us in class, they will be more motivated to engage there as well. 

Prior to the first day of class, post some information about yourself about who you are as a person.  Create a text-based page with one or more still photos or develop a video to show students something about your life and interests.  Reveal your personality throughout the semester by interacting with students in your authentic voice.

Cultivate and demonstrate genuine caring for your students.  Create margin in your class, room for a bit of flexibility in case life happens, for you or your students.  Use Oops Tokens or other approaches to soften class policies when needed. 

Schedule deadlines to coincide with your availability to answer questions in advance and return graded work after. 

Talk to your students in real time, by phone or using any number of video conferencing tools.  Schedule a call for each student or offer this on an as-needed basis for students who need additional support.  Create human connections and achieve greater understanding through the simple means of talking to each other. 

Take a creative approach to offering virtual office hours, working to ensure they are meaningful and a productive use of your time as well as your students' time.

Create LMS rubrics to swiftly evaluate student work while simultaneously providing detailed individual feedback.

Record audio or video comments on assessments to provide richly nuanced input, adding emphasis and empathy through your voice. 

Nudge students in need of a little extra support. Send targeted, personalized emails at strategic points of the course with reminders about steps they can take to recover lost ground.

Ask students to commit to a plan for success. Have them complete a Goals Contract in the first few days of class. Submissions of this contract could release the rest of the class content to underscore its foundational importance in the course. 

Require students to demonstrate mastery of foundational concepts.  Create gateway quizzes, which must be passed with a score of 100% in order for students to proceed with module content. 

Deliberately build self-efficacy through scaffold assignment design.  Students achieve success in small tasks to help them develop confidence for more complex ones.