7 habits of highly effective online instructors
If colleges want students to succeed, they need to hire instructors who enjoy interacting with online students.
IT CLICKS: Successful learning should always be the goal. (Photo: Wikimedia Commons) -
Interact with the class at least three to five times a week or more. They should interact not only on discussion boards, but by leaving comments on homework, tests and labs.
-
Grade and return assignments in a timely fashion. Returning papers after more than two weeks is negligent. Without feedback it's difficult for students to know if they are doing things correctly or what things they need to change for a better grade.
-
Effective online teachers reply to e-mails in no less than 24 hours. Good instructors return emails on the same day or day before an assignment due date. Students who take classes online do so, usually, because they are too busy with a full-time job or jobs to take classes on campus. While it's not exactly reasonable to expect the instructor to check their emails every hour on the hour, it's not unreasonable to expect them to check and answer emails on the day before or day of assignment due dates.
-
Good instructors give both positive and negative feedback on assignments. When a student scores low on an online lab or quiz, they need to know why so they don't make the same mistakes again. Teaching is about learning, not penalizing someone for what they don't know.
-
Good instructors don't go on power trips. Not giving feedback just to feel powerful is sick.
-
Good instructors offer tips and study sheets. It takes more effort to give out study guides or tips on what to study in the hudreds of pages (per class) students must read, but remember, online students must read much more than students who take classes on campus to get the information they need. The very best professors offer study guides. Students not only learn more, but they also succeed more often when teachers facilitate learning this way.
-
Good instructors encourage dialogue about the text and how it has practical applications. This can be easily done on discussion boards. This is the best use for the discussion board instead of assigning more research assignments.
| Previous Post Parents of special needs children: No more scream rooms | Next Post Hoosier lawmakers side with factory farms |
Comments
I agree on all points! Online students have much less to go on (typically, only reading the textbook) and that makes instructor interaction SO important. Answering emails is the biggest one for me. In a regular classroom, the questions a student has can easily be answered just by raising their hand. Online, it's way too common that questions like that get passed over. Great article!
I agree on the emails. It's quite frustrating when you're studying to have to wait for an answer, but that is the downside of online education. Still, I do prefer professors to answer their emails more expediently. Hopefully as online education becomes more mainstream, we will see improvements in online instruction. Thanks for your comments! You make some great points.
I think most instructors would agree that a personal relationship with your students is not only incredibly rewarding but also a motivating factor for learners. Students will often work harder for a teacher they feel cares personally about their learning and about them, personally. There is no reason this should lack in distance courses! I agree with every point you made and would only suggest instructors could make their teaching more personal by offering students a variety of modes of.... More
I love the idea of using social networks to engage students. Would this be the same as discussion boards? I've often thought that blogging would be an excellent way for a student to build a portfolio over a semester in a class, too. Great comments! Thanks for the ideas!
In one of my college courses we did create blogs specifically for our portfolios, followed each other and were required to post a certain amount of feedback to our classmates every week. I thought it was super fun and a way to have more of a sense of classroom community:)
