Shannon Eastep from Northern Kentucky University presented a 20-minute recorded session about “Bringing Personality into an Online Classroom: Don’t Leave YOU Out of Your Online Class.” Eastep started by explaining why their video feed was included in the recording: to build strong relationships and bring your personality. Eastep mentioned that building strong relationships with faculty helps learners feel more satisfied and produce authentic work. Next, Eastep talked about eliminating barriers and anonymity to allow for more engagement. Students should have technical, emotional, and academic support. Student satisfaction and retention, Eastep emphasized, are important components of learning and dependent on establishing trust and support. To bring your personality into the classroom, Eastep had six suggestions:
- Include an introductory video that tells studetns about you beyond the class. Setting the tone and showing your authentic personality are important.
- Consider starting each new unit with a video or audio to set the tone and kick off the content in a personal way. This is one I would like to do!
- Include video, audio, and personal experiences in the content delivery.
- Encourage different modes of contributing to online discussion forums. I have tried to encourage participants to use audio/video posts. Eastep mentioned something that caught my attention: that speaking a response may bring differnet thoughts or information than a textual response.
- Be consistent and detailed in your communicatin with students. Eastep sends an announcement on Sundays to introduce the topic, they then get a reminder email mid-week, and often they receive a text message through Remind to remind students about assignments. I am using a checklist and hope it works! Eastep emphasized consistency.
- Provide feedback that is personal with audio, video, and maybe individualized emails. Eastep shared some of the language used that reflects caring and attention to the assignments submitted.
Eastep shared several tools for multiple discussions: VoiceThread, Padlet, Flipgrid, and Nearpod. Loom, Screencastify, and Screencast-o-matic are content recording systems that can be used for feedback. Remind and LMS announcements were then mentioned by Eastep as ways of encouraging communication.
Student feedback on instructor presence shared by Eastep highlighted the impact of video announcements and communication to humanize yourself and the course. This was a fun session, and Eastep ended by saying: “don’t forget to bring you into your courses!” I am going to try creating and sharing a communication plan tomorrow.
Next, I watched NC State colleagues Heidi Echols and Beth Shepherd discuss “10 Things Successful Instructors Do in Their LMS.” The presenters are from the Instructional design Team in the Poole College of Management. Their ten user-centered design tips were:
- Organize units chronologically
- Use images to break up text
- Include a brief overview of what students will learn each week.
- Sort information in units by learning and doing or repetition. This is one I have to do a better job on!
- Include action verbs in the item names. Do I do this? I just checked and revised at least the first two units of the course that starts tomorrow.
- Use easy-to-understand file names. This is often easy to overlook.
- Include timing for all videos.
- Make links open in new windows.
- Create a space for important information such as syllabus and course schedule.
- Add a hidden note with changes for the next time you offer the course.
- BONUS: Give students a way to check off work.
For the first suggestion, organize units by date, Echols shared how units are labeled with the topic and date range. Tip number two was to include images to break up the text. In their example, Echols showed a module with a banner and a label with an image. The third tip was to share a brief overview for students to know the expectations and to establish routine and clarity. Echols mentioned that this structure increases student satisfaction and establishes a routine. Shepherd shared that sorting the information within units by learning vs doing. I do struggle with this as sometimes the learning activities and instructional materials seem similar. Shepherd mentioned that this structure helps students know what the deliverables are. I honestly didn’t think about it as an input/output model before this. Using action verbs in assignments was tip number five and “takes the guesswork out of what students are expected to do” according to Shepherd. Tip six was to use easy-to-understand file names; they recommended renaming in the LMS to a user-friendly descriptive title. Echols explained tip number seven: including the timing for all videos and any assignment for students. The example they shared had approximate times for reading assignments. Tip number eight was to make any links open in new windows. Apparently, Canvas does it automatically! The rationale is that students don’t lose the course website. Tip number nine was to create a space for important documents. In their Moodle example, they used an HTML block. I may do this after we pass the first couple of weeks. Tip number ten was to add a hidden note for the next time you offer the course. The bonus tip was to turn on a way for students to turn on a way to check off completed items. They recommended using the activity completion feature in Moodle consistently to take full advantage of the structure. I love sessions with simple and actionable tips. Several of these were very timely as I am checking the course site one last time before tomorrow!
