T4LT - Online Student Engagement Tips and Strategies

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.