Your teaching has gone online! Your tutorials are set up, you are a newly-forged Zoom expert, you’ve recorded some great lectures using Universal Capture, and you’re thinking about the next step – how do I keep my students engaged?

This blog post will look at some options you might consider to ensure your students remain engaged in the learning process, and that you stay engaged with them, too.   

Before you begin

Before you begin, ask yourself – what kind of engagement do I want, and how much can I cope with? The size of your cohort, the course itself, and your mode of delivery should help you to determine the answer, and keep engagement and communication manageable.

Have a clear, logical Wattle site

Sometimes, half the battle is an aesthetic one. Wattle sites that are messy, disorganised, and difficult to navigate can be off-putting for students: they can’t find what they need easily, or swiftly, and they are unlikely to hang around and participate in non-compulsory activities.

• Is your Wattle site organised logically? Does it reflect the learning path students should take? The structure of your delivery? Is there clear communication regarding the expected path a student should take? If you’re using Zoom, is the meeting link easy to find?
• Is there unnecessary clutter? Are there resources scattered through that could be in Folders or stored on Pages? Could content be turned into a Book or an Articulate resource? Are all of your longer recordings in the Echo library? If you are using images, are they formatted properly and linked to the content?
• Are assessments and assessment information all in the one place? Are tasks clearly titled? Are the associated rubrics attached to the task?
• How do students contact you? Is this information easy to find?
• Is your site designed for access on different devices? For instance, are you using Collapsed Topics so students can access content easily from a mobile phone or tablet?

Create teacher presence

Teacher presence is how visible and active you, as the educator and facilitator, are within your online classroom. Presence can be relatively straightforward and quick to produce and maintain. It can be done through:

• Having your photo in the ‘Key Contacts’ Wattle block;
• Having a ‘communications plan’ which outlines the frequency with which you will communicate with students, and the mediums through which they can expect this (ie. Forums, videos/podcasts, Zoom etc.)
• Short videos or podcasts (introducing the course/site/topic/difficult concept/providing group feedback/answering FAQs/checking in);
• Actively posting on assessable discussion forums to let students know you’re engaging with their work;
• Providing online ‘drop-in’ sessions via Zoom (separate from tutorials) where students can ask questions or just check in (you could even use the Wattle Scheduler tool to create appointment times, if you prefer to be more structured);
• Using the Wattle ‘Chat’ function at advertised times (ie. the day after your lecture is posted online) to discuss material or deal with queries.

The creation of teacher presence can lead naturally to social presence, which refers a student’s ability to connect, communicate, and present themselves as an individual within a community of inquiry (ie. their peers within a course).

Social presence can be further emphasised by:

• Group rules/a group code of conduct that is shaped by the cohort and enforced;
• Formal or informal peer assessment and discussion;
• A facilitator (you or your tutor/s) forging links between student responses;
• Allowing personality – both yours and your students’. Do they have an opportunity to respond with voice/video if they are comfortable doing so? Have you encouraged them to fill out their Wattle profiles (being mindful of what they are sharing)? Is your feedback in forums constructive and tailored? Do you use humour when possible?

Foster active learning

Active learning is learning by doing – reading, writing, discussion, problem solving, creation and evaluation. Offering your students opportunities to do this – and opportunities to do this with each other, which creates openings for peer learning and peer assessment – can assist in increasing engagement in your online class, along with promoting a sense of cohort, community, and connection.

• Are activities in your site assessable? (ie. graded discussions and responses, hurdle peer assessment);
• Are you creating opportunities for creation and evaluation? Are your students given opportunities to apply their skills and teach their peers?;
• Are you considering authentic assessment for your course? (Simulations, role-plays, real-life problems, etc.);
• Are students given low-stakes opportunities to test their understanding? (Hurdle Quizzes, low-mark discussion forums, etc.);
• Are you creating asynchronous tasks? (Guided reading questions, ‘check your understanding’ Quizzes, discussion forums, short answer responses.)

Feedback

Students want to know that you are engaging, too. Are you leaving feedback on their discussion forum posts? (Remember that for large cohorts, you can make a short podcast or video giving overall feedback to the group and covering common issues and strengths. You can also provide model answers, or, with student permission, highlight excellent responses within the cohort.) Are you using the Announcements forum? Can they see that you have been active in the site through the addition of resources?

You can seek student feedback informally through the Wattle Feedback tool. This can be used as a check-in at various points in the course, and will let you know what is and isn’t working for students. If they say they’re having issues with content, how are you responding? If they can’t access synchronous online sessions, what is your back-up (asynchronous) plan? If they don’t feel they have enough support prior to submission of the first major assessment task, can you create something extra?

Remember that there is a wealth of information all around you – your colleagues. Ask the ones who have taught online before what has worked for them, and what they found challenging. What would they do differently? What would they do again? How did they define ‘good’ engagement? What did they enjoy about teaching online?

Resources

CEIST has blog posts on Effective Online Teaching, Alternatives to On-Site Lectures and Tutorials, and Tutorial Activities for Offshore Students, which focuses on asynchronous learning activities.

ANU Online have a number of Coffee Courses that you can access any time, including Designing Online Learning Environments, Engaging Students Online, and Facilitating Effective Discussions. The Centre for Learning and Teaching has also developed a self-enrol Wattle site, Teaching Remotely, which houses a number of different resources and forums where you can communicate with your colleagues about their experiences. Campus Morning Mail has also been featuring a number of articles about online tertiary education from experts in the field.

If you have any questions, queries, or you just want to bounce ideas off someone, remember that you can always contact us in CEIST: ceist.law@anu.edu.au .