You, the instructor, play an important role in shaping your students’ learning experience. As courses across the world move online in light of the coronavirus pandemic, prompting discussions and engaging and encouraging students become all the more challenging. How do you support your students and foster learning in a virtual setting?

Northern Arizona University’s Flower Darby, Delta State University’s April E. Mondy, and Grand View University’s Kevin Gannon set out to address this question in Managing Your Online Presence, the second in ACUE’s series of Effective Online Instruction seminars. In partnership with The American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), The American Council on Education (ACE), The Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU), The Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), and The National Association of System Heads (NASH), the series addresses a variety of topics to help instructors effectively transition to remove learning environments. This webinar was moderated by Kim Middleton, academic director at ACUE.

Mondy stressed the need for effective communication during these tumultuous times. “We’re in survival mode,” she said. “Communication should be transparent, empathetic, proactive, and consistent.”

She also reminded participants of the importance of flexibility during periods of uncertainty. “We need to be flexible, patient, and understanding with students, and they need to be flexible, patient, and understanding with us.”

To that end, she encouraged faculty to convey understanding and a willingness to work with, not against, their students. This, she said, includes anticipating and proactively addressing questions and concerns from students before they arise. It also means being consistent, such as sending emails and announcements at the same time every week.

Darby, too, pointed to the need for communication. “Emphasize ‘one-to-many’ communication instead of one-to-one,” she said.

She presented the Community of Inquiry framework, noting three presences necessary, including cognitive, social, and teaching. The presences all intersect at deep learning and include such factors supporting discourse, setting climate, and selecting content. “Emotional presence should suffuse the whole thing,” she concluded.

Darby urged faculty to ask students to share challenges they might be experiencing outside of class with them through a survey or other means.

Gannon, too, believes check-ins and surveys can be effective. “It’s important to signal we’re aware that these are weird times for everybody,” he said.

He also proposed creating a “parking lot” to post items that may not come up in class discussions but need to be addressed. Via a discussion board or other channels, instructors can post topics, and students can ask questions. Gannon simply posed the prompt, “Got a question?” to encourage students to chime in.

Creating a low-to-no-stake space, he said, is essential, as is showing transparency and empathy.

During the Q&A portion, participants wondered how the experts might address a situation in which students weren’t willing to cut their instructor some slack.

“Sometimes, students have a tendency to put us on a pedestal,” Mondy said. “They need to be reminded that this is something we’re all dealing with. Say, ‘I’m trying to be flexible with you, and I need you to be flexible with me.’”

“Our students may be communicating less skillfully than they usually would with us,” Gannon added. “Give them the benefit of the doubt.”

“The more we’re willing to be vulnerable and let students into our lives, the more forgiving they’ll be,” Darby suggested.

Other participants asked for suggestions on communicating with students who had limited technology access.

“Don’t compromise the integrity of their learning, but be more flexible at this time,” Mondy said. As an example, she told an anecdote about a student who was unable to complete an assignment because he only had access to a tablet, not a computer.

“Ask yourself, ‘Could I do this on my cell phone?’” Gannon proposed. “That helps you think of ways to create alternate means of completing assignments. Are there ways to limit materials we want them to access?”

“Most students have some kind of smartphone,” Darby said. “Offer ways to communicate, whether it’s one-to-one with you, in a small group, or to the whole class.”

“We need to work through challenges together,” said Mondy.

To ask a question, add your own thoughts, watch the webinar or read a transcript, or access plenty of online teaching and learning resources, visit the Managing Your Online Presence webinar page.

In January 2020, faculty from Waubonsee Community College participated on a panel to discuss their experiences learning together in ACUE’s course in Effective Teaching Practices. The faculty were among a cohort of 30, 15 adjunct and 15 full-time, who began the course in 2019 to better their teaching practice. You can see a video of the panel on the Waubonsee website. 

Waubonsee panelists included Dani Fischer, associate professor of biology; Amy Chaaban, assistant professor of information systems; and Jason Chatman, instructor of sociology.

Waubonsee facilitators Robin Luxton, adjunct faculty and Dave Voorhees, professor of earth science and geology, as well as Carmen Macharaschwili, regional director of academic programs at ACUE, also joined the conversation

Here are some of the highlights from the panel discussion. Some of the responses have been edited for clarity and length.

How is the ACUE program beneficial to faculty and students?

Chatman: I’ve been teaching for nine years, so I’m not new to it, but I wanted to learn how to teach better. With this course we have the opportunity to sit in a class where it’s all about that. This first semester when I was in the class and simultaneously trying some of the methods in my sociology classes, I noticed a difference. It makes the class more enjoyable for me, and it makes it more enjoyable for the students. The ACUE material can really empower you to build a much more enriching and rewarding classroom experience.

Chaaban: I’ve been teaching for a long time—I’ll be starting my 20^th year in the fall—and I felt like I needed a revamp to refresh myself. Also, you get to learn more about your students because there are some very quiet people in the class who have unique perspectives. These new methods help me to relate better to those students and figure out ways that I can approach them and design the exercises with them.

Fischer: I think it is really good for my students to realize that I am a student too—that we are learning together. Doing some of the ACUE activities made me learn that some of my students were not coming to class with prior knowledge I thought they had. So now I know to add it to my arsenal of things that I’ll do all the time.

What is the ACUE experience like?

Chatman: When you’re in one of the modules they introduce a technique to you. You watch several videos that show you some examples of people doing it well. Then they show you an example of a person not doing it well and the class going really badly. You then talk about it with your colleagues who are taking the course with you. You decide to either implement it in your classroom yourself, or you plan to do it in the future, and you do a write up on it.

Chaaban: This written reflection allows you to go deeper into what you learned—what worked, what didn’t work, and how you’re going to implement it. It takes time and dedication to plan those things out, but I look forward to doing it. It is certainly doable and you’re going to get out what you put into it.

Chatman: I’ve never found the class itself to be overwhelming or burdensome. It takes you out of your routine, but the more you do it the more natural it becomes.

How have you applied some of the new practices in your classes?

Fischer: I implemented a peer-review activity in my biology class. I originally assumed there wasn’t a whole lot of opportunity in my type of classes for peer review, but I did it for a formal lab. I was really surprised at how completely the students filled out the document. They got to see what other people’s work looked like, which otherwise they wouldn’t, and I think they got the opportunity to make themselves better and make their partner’s work better. It was very successful.

Chaaban: I used the fishbowl method in my computer ethics class. The students had a week to prepare—reading a scenario and doing their research. When they came into class on the discussion day, three people sat in the middle of the circle and started talking. When one of them would mention a fact, you would see all the others working to see if the fact was true. It was phenomenal how engaged all of them were. I just took notes—I didn’t have to give them any prompts or assistance. It was fascinating from my standpoint to watch them do this. Afterward, I had the students do an evaluation of the activity and they all loved it. They thought it was very worthwhile and wanted to do it again.

Chatman: The activity that I thought was most effective was when we did the jigsaw in my class. There are three primary sociological theories that get used. Prior to trying this I would normally give some lecture material on it and have students discuss. But when you do the jigsaw activity, you have groups specialize in one aspect of what you’re learning, so I had groups working on each of the three theories. They studied it and learned it for 30 minutes by themselves and then started interacting with each other and teaching the other groups what they learned. By the end, the class as a whole had a better understanding of all the different theoretical perspectives. It opened up and established what we call the “sociological imagination” so deeply and broadly in all of them. It’s the only way I’m going to do it now.

What motivated you to take the course, and what continues to intrigue you?

Fischer: The number one driving factor in my taking this class was that you can get graduate credit. The second would be interacting with other faculty. Since there was a split between adjunct and full-time faculty, I got to meet new people I haven’t interacted with before.

Chaaban: The online resources are phenomenal. First thing I did is download all the PDFs, put them in a folder and keep them, because I want to be able to have those afterwards. And what I love too is that you can go back into past modules and review. They’re not closed to you.

Fischer: And you don’t have to come up with all this content on your own. There are a lot of supportive documents that you can utilize for any activity in your class. You don’t have to build from scratch. I also love that there are a lot of options in each module, so you don’t have to do the same thing.

Closing Remarks

Chaaban: I don’t love this class; I adore this class. It’s absolutely phenomenal and I can’t say enough about it. This has really changed my teaching dramatically.

Fischer: When you’re collaborating with faculty from all over the country—teachers from UCLA or University of Michigan—it almost feels intimidating, but you realize they’re all dealing with the same thing you are, which is nice.

Luxton: I have been impressed at every level…I have been nothing but pleased by the experience so far.

Voorhees: This is the real deal—this is where you can truly get a good exposure to how to be a teacher. Most of us are content experts, but we don’t really know how to be teachers. This class excels at giving you a quality product on how to be the most effective teacher you can be.

Dr. Carol Rolheiser is clear: her passion for teaching is at the core of her professional work. A professor with the University of Toronto’s Department of Curriculum, Teaching, and Learning, Dr. Rolheiser also serves as the university’s director of the Center for Teaching Support & Innovation (CTSI). ACUE recently spoke with Dr. Rolheiser and her colleague Megan Burnett, associate director of the CTSI.

After looking for a faculty development experience that Rolheiser says would “support the building of teaching culture across the University of Toronto,” they found ACUE. They launched the Effective Teaching Practices course with 45 faculty members in mid-2019.

The duo’s insights several months into the experience? 

“Our biggest worry was that the basics would feel like the basics or it would feel foundational. It doesn’t because they [faculty course-takers] are applying new ideas they haven’t thought about or ideas that they have been using are now more intentional. And they’re also affirmed because there are things that they now are thinking about in a new way,” said Rolheiser.

“And the level of discussion that we have seen on the discussion boards is amazing. They’re sharing ideas. They’re cross-pollinating. And it’s a very diverse group. Lots of different disciplines represented. And they’re learning from each other, which is one of the key factors that we wanted in place for this experience,” added Burnett.