What Teachers Can Do to Help Students Succeed

Technology Skills We Hope Students Have at the Start of an Online Class and How Mentors Can Help Them

We would like to believe our students know how to navigate the Learning Management System but we cannot be sure of that unless we teach in a class that is beyond beginner level in an institution with many online courses. We may need to help students by explicitly stating where to find information in our courses. Some teachers have a “Treasure  Hunt” or “Scavenger Hunt” at the beginning of the class so that students will know where material is located. Often a small amount of credit is given, and the student can take as many times as necessary to get a perfect score. We want students to learn this information, and hope they take it until all their answers are correct.

It is a good idea for online teachers to TAKE an online class before they teach one. Being a student gives teachers a good idea of what student face. Teachers should be prepared to help students with class navigation, but any institution with online courses should have technical help, and this help should be staffed fully the first few weeks of classes.

We assume students can compose, spell check and save files in a Word Processor.  They may not all use Word, however, and may need help in learning to save in .rtf format. We might expect them, depending on the class, to be able to open PowerPoint files and, if they do not have PowerPoint to be able to download the PowerPoint viewer. Some classes require students to use a Spreadsheet. If this is a requirement the students need to know at the start of the class.

Any special software used in the class should be explained to the students before they register for the class. It is not fair to the students to sign into a class and find they need to purchase an expensive piece of software.  It is not fair to students to find out once they start the class that there will be required synchronous sessions. Students often assume that online means "anytime, anywhere" and synchronous sessions, while not requiring a specific place, do require a specific time.

We hope our students realize that a college class is formal learning and the language in the class is academic writing. They may not know this and need to be told. They may also need to be reminded that discussions in the course require respect for others.

To help students succeed we need to give them the information that they need and assume nothing.

Visual Appearance of Course:

I like to see color in a class but I try to remember that ADA students and those who are color blind cannot see color. I use color for headings but I try not to make it necessary to see the color to complete the course. The color blue should be avoided because students associate that color online with links.

Graphics are fun, but they should be either self created or from public domain sources, and have an alternate tag.

No matter how hard we try to prepare students for online they will always have questions. Online mentors should be open to questions and reply quickly.

Suggestions for Personalizing the Online Course:

Introduction at beginning of the class – I think this is very important.  Some teachers hold  a synchronous call at the start of class. I think this would be fun but the problem is that people take online classes because they cannot be in one place at one time. Also, some teachers, like me, because of a situation at home, cannot guarantee to be available at one time.  

It is important that the teacher welcome each student. I know some teachers say they don’t want to “interfere” with the discussions but I disagree. I believe in getting in there early with a welcome.

Teachers should reply to posts in the Introduction. Don’t wait. Do it!

Problem with late and early posters: if some post far ahead of time community is lost. The only solution is to not make the material available, and I have done that. However, since I do require replies to others the early posters must return to the class and enter into the conversation.

With late posters there is no problem because colleges usually allow the teachers to take off points. If a student has been active in the conversations all semester and then contacts me that they have a problem then I usually do not deduct points.

Student-to-student interaction: There should be a Cyber Café for posts outside the course content. Sometimes there are “chatty” classes and the Cyber Café is very active, but sometimes nobody posts. When you teach you will be surprised at how different classes can be. Once I taught the same class to two very similar groups demographically at the same time. There was a big difference in the “feel” of the class. 

Comics: While we might find comics that are very appropriate for our class we must be careful in using copyrighted material. There are public domain comic sites also http://digitalcomicmuseum.com/  and you can make your own http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/  The words to search for are Public Domain and Open Access.

Fostering diversity: If students do NOT know what their classmates look like will they be more willing to respect their views? Some students have told me that they take online courses because they will be judged by the quality of their work, not by how they look. Maybe put pictures in at the END of the class?