About a year and a half ago, after longing to try my hand at teaching an online-only course, I finally got the chance, at Missouri School of Journalism (alma mater).  Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing some things I learned in a presentation at the 2011 AEJMC conference of journalism profs in St. Louis.  The big tips:  1.) Overcommunicate — through email, Facebook, LinkedIn, telephone, whatever. The minute students sense you’re AWOL, you’re dead. I actually like to set up virtual office hours. Students may still contact you in between times, but that’s cool. I think they see office hours as a kind of safety net — if they’re struggling, they know you’re there at an appointed time to help. I also recommend using short voice memos on occasion to students. Your voice says a lot about you (in my case, probably that I sound like an 11-year-old). It’s also an easy way to convey a human, not a machine, is teaching them. 2.) Put everything up on your course-management site from Day One. In other words, don’t trickle the stuff out, week by week. Seeing it all at once helps busy students plan and think ahead. Most importantly, provide past examples of A-work from students. That often answers a lot of questions about assignments. 3.) Ask students at mid-term how your teaching is going. Administering formal evals at end of term does nothing to help current students in your class. Asking mid-way gets you valuable feedback for possible course corrections. In my case, I learned students were struggling with a particular concept, so I returned to it before the course ended. Several students later told me that was just what they needed. 

About a year and a half ago, after longing to try my hand at teaching an online-only course, I finally got the chance, at Missouri School of Journalism (alma mater). 

Tomorrow, I’ll be sharing some things I learned in a presentation at the 2011 AEJMC conference of journalism profs in St. Louis. 

The big tips: 

1.) Overcommunicate — through email, Facebook, LinkedIn, telephone, whatever. The minute students sense you’re AWOL, you’re dead. I actually like to set up virtual office hours. Students may still contact you in between times, but that’s cool. I think they see office hours as a kind of safety net — if they’re struggling, they know you’re there at an appointed time to help.

I also recommend using short voice memos on occasion to students. Your voice says a lot about you (in my case, probably that I sound like an 11-year-old). It’s also an easy way to convey a human, not a machine, is teaching them.

2.) Put everything up on your course-management site from Day One. In other words, don’t trickle the stuff out, week by week. Seeing it all at once helps busy students plan and think ahead. Most importantly, provide past examples of A-work from students. That often answers a lot of questions about assignments.

3.) Ask students at mid-term how your teaching is going. Administering formal evals at end of term does nothing to help current students in your class. Asking mid-way gets you valuable feedback for possible course corrections. In my case, I learned students were struggling with a particular concept, so I returned to it before the course ended. Several students later told me that was just what they needed. 

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