Emily: Hi I'm Emily
and this is Alan
and today we're going to give you
some tips on preventing
the disengaged online student.
Alan: [sigh]
Tip #1: Call them or maybe even text them.
This will take some groundwork at
the beginning of the term.
You'll need to gather some
good phone numbers.
A survey in ANGEL or a form in Google
might be useful for this.
Emily: Tip #2: Make logging into class
a regular necessity.
No one likes busy work, but if there's
a regular expectation of practice built into
your online course, students will find
themselves in the habit of logging in.
Alan: Tip #3: Find out who is not
logging in. With ANGEL an agent
can be created to alert you as to
who has not logged in recently
say, the last week or so.
Then you can decide what needs to be done.
A first step would be to let
the college's retention specialist know.
Emily: Tip #4: Make assignments relevant
and meaningful. Talk about your course
outcomes with your students.
One activity might be to invite students
to discuss or submit to a drop box
all the ways they could prove to you
those course objectives have been met.
Alan: Tip #5: Explain expectations.
Expectations require explanation.
Yours are different from your students.
Students might enter an online course
expecting to soak in knowledge, while
the instructor expects them to explore
and seek out knowledge.
Emily: Tip #6: Pre-assess your students'
readiness for online learning.
Provide them with a short pre-survey or
provide tutorials for elearning and online
learner success.
Alan: Tip #7: Include a time management
activity. Online learners often struggle
with making time to study and prepare for
their online courses. Help them establish
realistic and regular study habits.
Emily: Tip #8: Introduce variety and
ownership into your assignments.
Allow for self expression and creativity
through multimedia tools like YouTube,
Prezi, Audacity, and others that we've
featured here in the past.
Alan: Tip #9: Add a regular webinar
element to your course. We still
want our online courses to appeal
to those who work full time or
otherwise have real world schedules,
so these would need to be recorded and
available asynchronously as well. The
idea that your course is more than a
canned set of materials establishes a
culture of communication and study.
Emily: Tip #10: Whenever possible,
personalize your communication with
students. Good feedback is often
where the learning happens. They want
to hear from you.
Alan: We understand some of these tips
may be controversial or prove difficult
for your discipline.
Emily: You might even feel that these
disengaged students have the right to
disengage and it's up to them, not
you, to re-engage. You make a good point.
However, student engagement is a predictor
of student learning. The more your
students feel part of the course, the
more likely they are to succeed.
Alan: Thanks for watching.