II. Communicate Expectations
Clearly express your plans and expectations to students in a prominent location in the course. A good place for this is the course syllabus or a course introduction message or video in Moodle. Here are some items to consider addressing:
- How much time should students set aside weekly to spend on course work?
- Where should students look for announcements, Q&As, and updates about the course?
- When are activities due, and what is the late policy?
- When should students expect grades and feedback on assignments?
III. Provide Effective Feedback
Providing timely and meaningful feedback gives students tangible evidence of their performance and enhances their sense of support and care. Effective feedback offers recognition of good work and specific suggestions for improvement. It can also encourage students to contact you about any confusion or difficulty they are having in the course.
Try to provide grades and feedback as soon as possible, preferably within 1 to 3 business days.
Quizzes and Exams
Include automated feedback responses for questions on Moodle Quizzes to:
- Provide clear, concrete, and specific feedback so students can understand how to improve their performance.
- Link back to the relevant instructional materials.
- Use encouraging wording for both correct and incorrect responses.
Written Assignments
Use Moodle Assignments or Turnitin Feedback Studio to provide feedback that can:
- Encourage problem solving by using statements like “How could you clarify...?” or “What’s another way to...?”
- Be specific (Ex. “Great use of evidence in this section!” and “What did you mean in this part?”).
- Use a rubric to organize feedback and determine a grade.
- Accommodate peer or self-assessments.
Online Discussions
Use Moodle Discussion Forums to provide feedback that encourages students to participation and learn by:
- Providing timely responses to comments and questions.
- Diagnosing misconceptions without delay to avoid further misunderstanding or confusion.
- Using gentle reminders to carry the discussion further or redirect discussion from inappropriate topics.
IV. Add Instructor Presence
Interacting with students online is not as spontaneous as face-to-face classes. Given the physical distance and reduced communication cues between students and instructor, online students can feel disconnected or isolated from their instructors when they do not interact with them regularly. Therefore, establishing instructor presence and actively engaging with students are particularly important.
Below are examples of ways to establish instructor presence in your course.
Post Weekly Announcements
The announcement forum is an easy place to communicate with the entire class, even if only once a week. News items can include:
- Reminders or previews of upcoming assignments.
- General comments on how the class did on a test or assignment.
- Remediation on a misunderstood or muddy learning point with examples.
Give Module Introductions
Providing a short introduction at the top of each module helps remind students that an instructor is leading the course. It can be text-based, video, or audio recording (1-2 minutes).
Provide Module Wrap-Ups
A wrap-up at the end of a module helps replicate an often-missed aspect of face-to-face classes: the ability to summarize, synthesize, and correct students’ misconceptions. The module wrap-up could take the same form as a Module Introduction, including text, video, or audio. It is also a great opportunity to show your personality and humanize the course.
Schedule Virtual Office Hours
This can be as simple as setting a time when students can contact you by email and know that they will get a quick response. Other options for online office hours include using Zoom or Teams.
Schedule Synchronous Sessions
Asynchronous courses have no real-time contact with students. You can create optional synchronous sessions in your online courses using Zoom and Teams to allow students to interact in real time to enhance a sense of community and social presence.
V. Monitor Student Activity
Monitoring student progress gives instructors the opportunity to ensure student achievement, identify students at risk, and provide intervention when required. There are several ways to track student progress in Moodle:
- Checklist: Allows instructors to create a "To-do" list for learners to check off items as they are completed and provide a visual representation of what has been accomplished. Instructors can monitor learner progress as they complete items on the list.
- Activity Completion: Display student progress on individual activities.
- Logs: Show what a student has interacted with on the course site and when the student did it. Course Participation: Generate a participation report for a particular activity in your course.
- Course Participation: Generate a participation report for a particular activity in your course.
To learn about actively teaching an online course, enroll in ODL 210 Beyond Design: Stratregies for Online Course Delivery.
