(Re)humanizing the Online Classroom

Online classes require special attention to create environments where all feel comfortable engaging. How do you want to present yourself synchronously as well as asynchronously? What types of interactions will you encourage? When can you bring out your expert-self, your facilitator-self, or your mentor-self? When do you need to make yourself invisible? How will you invite students to bring their whole selves into the online class? How can you leverage online tools to build and enhance your classroom community? One way to do this is by reminding students of your humanity and your interest in what you are teaching. Another (complementary) way to do this is to invite students to share their own passions, knowledge, and expertise. This can help us minimize time, anxiety, and stress, and maximize the time and energy we put into developing engaged classwork, effective assessments, and deeper and transformative learning processes. Below are some concrete tips and examples:

Presence

Create a video to introduce yourself that communicates your passion for the course subject matter. Provide some details about the structure of the course, take the students through the syllabus, and outline the technology that students will need and the anticipated time requirements. Add this to your welcome email.
Design a low-stakes assignment where students can introduce themselves, too.

Time management

Consider how you will spend time and what aspects of the course lend themselves to happen synchronously or asynchronously. Understand that oftentimes asynchronous work will take a longer time to set up and execute than you may imagine, both for you and your students.
There are a host of reasons why delivering and listening to a long, synchronous lecture is harder online than it is in person. Could you split up your lectures into several microlectures that are followed by more active components?

Communication

Communicate clearly, predictably, often, and in multiple formats. Make sure that communication is consistent; for example, if you adjust a due date in one place, make sure it is also adjusted in all of the places where it appears on your course platform.
Add a section to your course syllabus/site on what your communication plan is, even if it is simply posting announcements to Brightspace regularly each week.
Make information available in several formats—videos, infographics, and text, for example.
Create a Q&A forum where students can post questions for you and each other.

Setting a communal tone

Survey your students privately before the first day of class about what they may want to learn, skills they can offer to share, and their existing comfort with tech tools (as well as their levels of access to them, including when they can use them).
Design a first day “icebreaker” where students can share their interests, languages, interest in the course topic, or other things about themselves.
Consider asking students to create a mini skill-share video, or encourage students to answer each others’ tech questions on a message board that everyone can access. Some students are already savvy video producers, online communicators, and digital learners who can help each other (and you!) to navigate new technologies.
Create a backup plan for when things don’t go as planned in a class, both for yourself and your students. Know where to seek help, and be honest with students when things don’t work out as intended. Document your experience and any feedback from students to help design revisions in the future.
It is easy for some students to ‘disappear’ from online classes quickly and end up falling through the cracks. Check in with anyone who seems unengaged, and be proactive in connecting them with college resources that can help.

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