small changes. BIG IMPACT.

 

Do you feel like there’s something missing from your class but you can’t quite put your finger on it? Or do you know you need to make a change, but you just don’t want to make a big time or labor investment? Guess what? I have some tips for small changes that are easy enough to do tomorrow or before the semester is over. These ideas are great for online courses or blended courses where a large portion of the course is in iCollege. 

• Call a meeting.
  • If your classes are asynchronous, you may still want to meet with students as a large group from time to time. It could be a simple “meet and greet” in the beginning of the semester, a mid-semester check in or even an end-of-semester farewell. This will help to establish a sense of community and engagement and put faces to names. 
  • Consider doing a live test review or post-test review. Students often feel some anxiety around tests, so “going live” may help put them at ease. It does not have to be mandatory, but I find that many students take advantage of this whether it is for the actual test review or they simply want to connect with you and their classmates. 
• Get in there. Students want “YOU”!
  • If you are not already responding and interacting much on the iCollege discussion boards, it’s not too late to ramp it up. Jump in there and interact with your students. If you are already visible in the discussion boards, consider saying hello and checking in on your students using the announcements tool. Students want to hear from us outside of the instruction that we offer. 
  • If you use modules in iCollege or organize your weekly assignments similarly, consider doing a preview of what’s to come in an audio file or video. It could be as simple as running down the list of assignments for the week or maybe taking a moment to explain an assignment in a little more detail. Also, the audio or video clip doesn’t have to be fancy or polished. Students actually prefer non-professional videos because it shows the real “you”. 
• Do a pulse check.
  • From time to time, embed a short survey into your modules to see how things are going. If you are teaching a blended course, you could even do it in person using Poll Everywhere or Slido. Oftentimes we set up our courses and basically press play from the beginning of the semester to the end. We go week by week expecting things to go smoothly and perfectly without really checking to see how students are doing. 

You may have noticed that many of these changes revolve around some kind of engagement. In many cases, more class engagement leads to higher levels of success in the course. So think about a small change or two that you can do to keep your students coming and engaged.