Managing time
It is important that the instructor should keep checking his or her email now and then, and shold set up adefinite schedule for the students for their assignments.
Alas
Students will need definitive guidelines in an on-line environment because of so many different personalities. Some students are procrastinators and will utilize every effort to do assignments last minute or attempt to resubmit assignments due to last minute preparation. It is for this reason and more that an instructor should let the students be aware of due assignments, requirements, and such on a regular basis. Instructors will need to establish a time frame in which they are available to assist students as well as reiterate school requirements.
You are right Katie. It is important to set deadlines but at the same time accomodate student issues as needed.
It is important to set up dead lines in the online syllabus along with all the important information such as grading policies. Making sure giving students your contact info (email address). Holding them accountable to contact you if they are facing issue and need an assistance. I have a large number of students every term about 250 students, I sent out at least weekly reminder and also at the same time some job leads to entice them to at least glance at my message. That way my time management becomes efficient since I receive more responds via emails than phone messages. Phone messages for me can be very time consuming to go through compared to emails.
You are right Kidawati. Putting deadlines on the syllabus to be shared the first day of class and sticking to those deadlines is very important in helping students stay on track as well as helping the teacher organize their time. Thanks for your comments.
I do like to update my students frequently by posting updates on the portal, but I have noticed that I get very little response or recognition of their reciept. The next online class I teach, I will send them each a copy of the update through their portal email and see if I can get their attention.
I recieve their email messages through my Blackberry, so I can review their submissions during downtime and respond to them when I get home with corrections, answers, or suggestions. This has worked out well and I find that I'm not locked in front of the computer quite as much as I would be if I didn't utilize this feature. Also, as I can return their emails through the phone, I can respond to them quickly, if needed.
Try this: I posted a response to a threaded discussion offering students an extra credit point if they responsed to my thread and correctly answered the question staged in the response. I had one student take advantage of that offer, which led me to believe that the other students were not even reading my posts or responses. I'm going to continue doing this in future class as an effort to gauge how many students are reading what the instructor is putting out to try and help with their education.
Wendy
Utlizing the technology to aid you in reaching out to your students is a great idea Wendy. I also like how you are continually trying new things to reach out to your students. For example, using the student portal as well as the student email is a great way to try and reach students.
Mukhtar,
Checking class participation frequently throughout the day and responding to discussions forums let the student know that you are interested in their interaction. I also find that just dropping each student an email a couple of times a week lets them know that I want them to keep in touch with me should they have any questions or concerns.
Those are great suggestions for Mukhtar. Thanks for sharing them Kelly.
the extra credit is a great idea but I usually find the "A" students do the extra credit because they are high achievers & the students who really need the extra points don't notice &/or take advantage of it---how about giving some of the details to assignment at certain dates so students would have to "tune" to find out more details or hints or clues to the assignments, just a thought not sure if it would work especially in some content areas?
I struggle with providing extra credit to college students as well. After all, this is a college course and extra credit can misrepresent the knowledge that a student has about the subject. I think that enticing students in other ways, such as you suggest, might be a better option. Thanks Penny.
At our school, we have a continuing problem with gauging the participation in the Live Chats--obviously those *live* students are accountable--but the ability to view the recorded archive and the response rate are impossible to judge.
What I have done is to borrow your idea by embedding vocabulary words that the students who provide a dictionary definition of receive bonus points and include it with their Individual Project for that week.
At a future point in the class, I provide the list to the entire class through a Home Page announcement to be fair, but it is interesting to see who responds the particular week that they are first provided.
I know that students nowadays rely on e-mail to make much of their contact. I try to be as accessible as possible by e-mail and voicemail to ensure that they can get a hold of me if they need to. If they are trying to make me aware of something in terms of their classwork, it is my responsibility to make sure that their needs and questions are met and answered. If they are taking the time to work hard and see that everything gets completed, I owe it to them to hold up my end of the bargain as a teacher who helps ensure their success. Their determination is a key factor, and it thrills me when I see how hard they work. I feel I should put in as much, if not more, of the time and energy that they do to make the course successful.
I always provide student my cell phone number and encourage them to contact me whenever they need to but I have found that most students will contact me via email. It is then important to check your email often, especially on days when assignments are due so that last minute questions can be answered.
I agree, some of the platforms should be able to cross over multiple media such as I-phones, blackberries and the like so long as people set up the e-mail to that domain
This is true - but when does checking email become too much. I remember taking a training course and they mentioned that you should develop a schedule and work from that. Additionally your students will not have unrealistic expectations for communication by setting guidelines for response time.
Time Management is about calculating the use of your most valuable resources. The absence of this management skill is portrayed by last minute rushes in meeting deadlines, meetings, days which seem to slip by unproductively, crises which appear suddenly from nowhere. These sorts of situations lead to unwarranted stress and deprivation of performance.
I would argue that online courses are difficult for young/returning students for this very reason. Often, a true freshman will not have the necessary time management skills. The first time I took an online course was when I was a graduate student. Even I had to fight the procrastination bug.
Yes, managing time is so important for both students and instructors. As an instructor, at the beginning of the week I print out all my tasks (grading, posts, emails) and follow it closely throughout the week. I also encourage my students to print out their tasks and due dates.
That is a great idea Michaela. Thanks for sharing it with the group.
