Last year I began teaching an online master’s level
course. At first I admit to being
overcome and even intimidated by all the technology and the speed at which I
had to learn it all. Being that I was located
a thousand miles away from the university where I was teaching, the only real
instruction I received was watching online videos dealing with how to use
blackboard. And, of course, I had
problems! However, with patient email
interaction with the university, I was finally able to communicate with my
students.
I somehow obtained pictures of my students’ faces and
immediately printed them out in color along with other vital information so
that I could put a name with a face. At
the outset, it seemed like there was no one out there, only dark blackness! I was posting all of this information,
syllabus, pictures, etc. without seeing anyone or hearing anything back.
Then one by one, they started to respond with, “Hey, is this
such and such a class? I just found out
that I was taking this course and …” The
first assignment I gave them was to pick out who the prof was in a group
picture I had put on the main page. I
wanted them to put my name with my face.
A couple of students “forced” me to initiate with them individually
since they hadn’t initially responded to my online stimulus package. During our first “discussion thread
interaction,” there was hardly any interaction at all. So, I decided to apply my old coaching
philosophy of coming down hard the first week of practice and laying down my
expectations. I told them, “I can’t give
you full credit here since you didn’t interact with at least two other people
in here.” They responded well to that
and I began to see much more traffic the following week.
In an effort to further establish relationships, I offered
times for them to Skype with me but no one responded. Then I knew that the “relationship” I had
with them was just going to be different and there wasn’t a whole lot I could
do about it. So, I threw caution to the
wind and just kept encouraging and constantly sending them relevant materials
right up to the end of the course.
The result? I
received good instructor ratings with one student commenting to another
professor that this course was in the top two he had taken during the whole master’s
program! The next semester another
student from that initial cohort signed up for another online course I
taught. To this day, I’ve never met any
of these students in person, but at least I know I made a small difference in
their lives!
