Creating Online Engagement

How should you present information during classes? Will traditional lectures work? Are there other ways to help students learn?

Here are a few things to think about:

Lay the groundwork.

The first few classes of the semester are incredibly important in regard to developing class retention, activation and agency.

Create a sense of community by getting to know your students – individually and collectively. Let them briefly introduce themselves so that everyone knows each other.

Take notes on their backgrounds, concerns, predilections, and cultural interests. To create effective learning environments in this non-standard situation, lean on their empathy in order to create class situations where students can intellectually and emotionally engage with their peers, with the work, and with their faculty.

If possible, at the start of the semester, set up one-on-one chats with students – maybe 15 or 20 minutes with each – in order to become familiar with them, to understand who they are, where they are, where they are from, and what they seek to get out of the classes they are taking. Contextually, this will help create a sense of mutual trust and show students that you actually care about their well-being.

Or, post a welcome message before or on the first day of class. The message can be a simple text sent via Canvas Announcements, a self-introduction posted to Canvas Discussion, or a simple Zoom recording of you introducing yourself and providing a course overview. It can be as low or high tech as you want it to be. Be vulnerable and caring. Blend in humor. Show your humanity. Invite students to do the same.

Consistency and improvisation.

Create a structure for your classes so that students know the rhythm. Build classes in blocks – maybe 20 or 30 minutes each, and build in pauses so that students can take short breaks, maybe enough time to let them walk away from their computers.

Each block of the class could be a different activity – a lecture, breakout room discussions, short activities, quizzes, etc.

It may be helpful to schedule certain parts of the coursework, like quizzes or attendance, at specific times.

At the same time, a certain amount of improvisation could make the process of teaching and learning more fun and meaningful for all. For example, if there are great conversations in the breakout rooms, give them more time there. Maybe those breakout room discussions lead to a larger group discussion, or maybe even a whole different lecture for the next class.

If something is working, go with the flow.

The Internet is a multimedia tool.

When live or pre-recorded lectures are appropriate, use multiple means of representation and engagement by integrating text, images, audio and video.

VoiceThread, an external tool in Canvas, is a marriage between a slide show and a discussion board. It allows both the lecturer and the audience to insert voice and video recordings over the slides.

When a pre-recorded lecture is posted, students can watch the lecture asynchronously and respond to guided questions and discuss the content by posting their own voice or video comments to the slides. Students can respond to both the lecture content and to other students’ comments. Asynchronous discussion can allow reflection and thoughtful responses.   

Class structure and time management.

Begin every class session with a slide clearly stating the goals of the session.

Block lectures into moderate length segments and invite participation at least every five minutes. If you lecture too long, you will lose the students.

Pose guided questions to activate thinking.

Assign reflective responses – minute papers, reflective comments, or just ask students a question. Have responses posted through VoiceThread, FlipGrid, Canvas Discussion, Zoom chat or any other system.

At the end of every class session, summarize what happened during the class, and prepare the students for the next meeting. Are there readings? Are the assignments coming up?

Remind the students of important dates and then ask for questions. Remind students that they should contact you via email or Canvas whenever they have questions.

Building the learning community.

Students learn best in learning communities where they are both intellectually stimulated and emotionally connected to others. This is more challenging to create in an online environment than in-person.

Be sure to check-in with students on a regular basis, especially if the course is operating asynchronously. Invite them to chat via Zoom or any other means, even if they don’t have questions.

You could also develop a buddy system, with students working with a partner or a team in order to understand concepts. Build small group work and allow the relationships to evolve.

Keep in mind that we cannot require that students keep their cameras on during Zoom meetings. We must respect students’ needs and err on the side of trust.

Not all students will be well-prepared for the online learning environment, which requires a level of independence, maturity, internal motivation, and good time-management skills.

Be as clear as possible about what your students are expected to achieve or perform during the course (e.g., providing detailed rubrics, displaying objectives of each class lesson at the beginning of class).

It’s important that we provide them all the support and encouragement possible.

Information gathered by Sunghee Ahn, Dennis Bacani, Ian Lynam, George Miller, Mariko Nagai and Makoto Negishi, April 2020. Images by George Miller. Art by Ian Lynam.