Communication and Feedback

One of the most telling signs that a student will see an online course through to its completion is if he or she feels connected to his or her instructor and classmates. One way to achieve this sense of belonging is for instructors to be deliberate in their course design with focuses on communication and feedback. Both of these are important, especially in the online classroom, because moments for spontaneous interaction are limited. For example, a student may see an instructor walking down the hall and ask her for clarification on an assignment.  In the online environment there’s not the opportunity for chance meetings. Thus, it’s up to the student to initiate the question, but is up to the instructor to create an environment where the student feels supported and encouraged.

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Faculty should model the communication skills they expect to see from their students. For example just as students are expected to meet deadlines with assignments, faculty should also hold themselves accountable establishing timelines for answering email, responding to drafts, or  posting on discussion boards. Moreover faculty should allow for interaction that takes advantage of synchronous and asynchronous communication tools. Many of these tools were discussed in the first two blogging assignments so I won’t repeat them here. Check out this short but informative paper on how-to effectively communicate in an online course: Lost in Translation: Importanceof Effective Communication in Online Education

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Feedback is essential to the learning process. It also lets your students know that you are listening to them, reading what they write or viewing their creations. Feedback allows the students to take your suggestions and apply them to their work in order to make it better. I offer my students the opportunity to submit a rough draft to me for my feedback before turning in their final essays. For each paper I identify areas of strength and areas that may need some additional work or clarification. Depending on the assignment, sometimes I do this via the comments function in MS Word or I use audio or audio/video feedback. For more information visit this site: Strategies for Providing Feedback in Online Courses.