Good online/hybrid teaching starts with good communication. You need to know that you can get information out to your learners, and students need to know that they can ask questions or seek help when they need it.

As there are many ways we can communicate – email, message boards, social media, text messages, etc. – students should be made aware of what they are responsible for checking and keeping on top of, as well as what means they should use to contact you or other students. Thus, as an instructor, it’s critical that you establish clear lines of communication in your course. 

Use the Course Home

Make the Course Home area of your course the information clearinghouse for all class related information. You can, and should, utilize other forms of communication like email, text, or mobile apps as well – but if a student has any doubts they should know in their bones that they can find answers in the Course Home.

In practical terms this means the Course Home area must include:

  • Your syllabus  (either a document or a webpage)
  • Your contact info: how/when can students contact you? What hours of the day are you working and attending to messages? How soon can they expect a response? Do you offer virtual office hours?
  • An Announcements forum: this is a specialized area that only you, the teacher, can post to. Communicate any announcements, changes or updates to the course here. Students should be told explicitly, several times, that they are responsible for checking in and looking for new announcements in an online course. Note that students will also receive email copies of these announcements in a daily digest. Unlike an email, however, it is not possible for an update in the Announcements forum to get deleted, sent to the wrong address, or be overlooked in an overflowing inbox. Moreover, it will always be there, in the same place, should it need to be referred to later, clarified, or amended.

You may also want to consider a second "Q&A"-style forum in the Course Home for students to post questions. Just like a student may ask for clarification publicly in a face-to-face class, this is an excellent way to help keep everyone on the same page. Sometimes, students may even help each other out in these forums and answer a question before you do. This is good (as long as the answering student is contributing valid and helpful information). It builds class community, clears up confusion, and saves you a little bit of precious time in the bargain.

 Finally, consider adding a short movie or audio podcast introducing yourself and welcoming your students to the course. This can immediately increase the students' sense of your “presence” in the course and increase engagement. You’ll learn more about some of the tools you can use to create and add media to Moodle in this course.

A Note on Email

Look at the following image - does it look familiar? What do you notice about it?


Think about the information environment your students are in and how they interact with email. Ask yourself, is an email always the best way to get a message out to your students? Is it reliable when it's the only way you communicate?

Email isn’t dead. A recent study at Bowling Green University found that most students check their school email account daily and that if they find a message from a faculty member, they are likely to read it. (Straumsheim, 2016)

However, the same study suggests that students are inundated with too much email and increasingly relying on other mediums to stay in touch with friends, family, and communities. So, use email; but don’t rely entirely on it. Utilize the Announcements forum in your Course Home for course updates. It’s OK to require your students to consciously and consistently engage with your course. Create some separation between the student's responsibility to stay informed and engaged with your course and their day-to-day email overload.

When you do want to send an email message - perhaps to address individuals or groups or to transmit a message that is especially time sensitive -  use Moodle Quickmail. It’s an easy way to send email and to be sure you aren’t leaving any registered students off of the message. It also uses BCC addressing, which hides recipients emails, so there is no danger of a student making an accidental "Reply All" response to the entire class.

 References

Strausheim, Carl. "Read and Unread." Study Explores Impact of Social Media, Texting on Email Use. Inside Higher Ed, 02 Mar. 2016. Web. 05 June 2017.


Last modified: Friday, 4 August 2017, 11:20 AM