Best Practices for Online Teaching - VoiceThread

 Here is my short presentation on strategies that teachers can use to keep students engaged in an online setting.

Skills Vs. Performance Deficits

    If you have a student or multiple students who aren't participating in class there are a couple things you can do to motivate them.  One thing you can do is offer some kind of reward for increased participation, this could potentially get unmotivated students to participate more in class.  Another strategy is to reach out to the student and ask if there's anything they're not understanding in the class, this can help you determine if the student is struggling due to a lack of skills or due to a lack of motivation.  One more thing you could do to increase student participation is encourage class discussion even if it's just to share ideas between students.

    If students are demonstrating a skills deficit, then you can give them extra work to help them practice their skills.  Have the student, or students, complete assignments similar to tasks they've already done and see if they're able to improve on their own.  If the students can't improve on their own they'll need extra help.  You could also give the students further explanations about the tasks they're doing so that they might understand why they're doing these assignments.

    If students are demonstrating a performance deficit, then you need to entice them to do the work.  Offering a reward for completing assignments can be a helpful way to increase students' motivation.  Another way you could increase a student's motivation is by giving the student a specialized role in the class such as, discussion leader.  Another way you could motivate students is by offering some kind of shortened assessment or allowing the students to skip an assessment and get an automatic A. 

Strategies to Facilitate Student Engagement in an Online Setting

 There are many strategies for teachers to use for facilitating student engagement in an online setting, in this blog post I'll tell you about five of them.  One strategy teachers can use is to set expectations and model engagement.  Another strategy teachers can use is to build engagement and motivation with course content and activities.  Teachers are encouraged to initiate interaction and create a faculty presence.  Also a good way for teachers to facilitate student engagement is by fostering interaction between students and creating a learning community.  A final strategy for teachers is to create an inclusive environment.

   Implementing these strategies in your online classroom is easy.  For setting expectations and modeling engagement, reach out to students prior to the start of the course, clearly identify assignment due dates, make the course available online early, and post expectations and course policies.  For building engagement and motivation with course content and activities, provide students with a variety of content, create a short intro for each unit, provide clear guidance for completing course activities and gaining deeper understanding of course content, send out homework due date reminders for each assignment, and encourage students to ask questions.  For initiating interaction and creating a faculty presence, post info about yourself, develop a communication plan, and provide frequent and interactive feedback on student work.  For fostering interaction between students, encourage critical and reflective discussion, use team projects, and set up help teams.  For creating an inclusive environment, get to know your students, highlight students' individual experiences, check your assumptions, and be conscious of accessibility concerns.

Online Learning Evaluation