The students should know why you are teaching the class (your qualifications) and what the plan is for your and their participation in the class.
Completing this Module has helped me understand the importance of getting to know your students. Helps to not only understand why they are taking the class but to also understand their other interest.
In an e-learning environment is is important for students to feel a connection to the instructor. It is important for students to have the background of the person doing the instructing. On the first day or before it's a great idea to send out a welcome letter to the students. An assignment could be a first discussion post with everyone introducing themselves to the course. Student connection is just as important in an e-learning environment as in a brick and mortar environment.
I agree that one of the first things a teacher and class should do is realize who they are and their goals for the class
From this module, I learned effective ways to building an e-learning community for students to learn.
I will apply what I learned by having the students create a small biography about themselves during the first week of a course.
Reaching out to students individually at the start of a new class vs just messaging them as a group is a great idea to build a personalized connection with the students right away.
It is important to nurture a relationship with students even if you are engaging from a distance.
It is important to start off the course with general biography of who I am as their instructor. Giving some personal information such as hobbies and interests can be a conversation starter and indicate my openness and willingness to have a one-on-one relationship with each student.
Build a relationship with your students even though it is virtual and online. Engage with them and encourage them to engage with each other.
Creating a biography and asking one of your students is important in establishing a relationship. Students are more likely to communicate when they feel comfortable with their instructor and will respect them when they know that they have the knowledge and experience for the course. I plan to post a bio for all students to access and include a bio lesson for students. I actually think that a pre-course and post-course bio might be interesting as well.
This module isn't what I thought it would be as far as how to project your presence to online learners but I guess one take away I got was to establish and initiate the conversation.
It appears that it is more difficult to establish relationships with students online as opposed to in-class. This course provides some good tips on establishing and building that relationship.
How to set up a virtual profile.
I really like the idea of getting the profile from each stusdents to try and get common ground. I feel it is important to try and make distant learning personal and this practice will go a long way in setting that relationship off to a positive learning experience.
I learned to use a biography to get to know your students.
This module made we realize that projecting my credibilty and presence via an online course requires different techniques than when teaching in a classroom. In my high school classroom, I have never provided the student with a personal biography. rather I would verbally share life experiences and accomplishments with the students during introductions and through the course discussions. I understand now that I will need to create different techniques to accoplish this in an online environment.
Instructor presence is crucial for online learning. Students need to see that the instructor is invested in their success.
Reply to Kimberly Szadek's post: FlipGrid bios would be pretty cool. They could show some of their creativity and share info in a comfortable format. I think when we are put in this situation due to the COVID-19 crisis we should be even more attentive to students' needs throughout this crisis. This is affecting so many people and all of us are going through things in different ways. We also need to take care of ourselves or we won't be effective.
I appreciated learning the best way to create a bio to present to the students. I also like the idea of having the students post a short bio for the first assignment.
This module gave me more information on how to utlize classroom strategies, presence, and projecting authority in order to have a successful distance learning experience. It gave me tips and suggestions to be successful in the distance classroom while using what I know in the regular classroom and applying strategies in different ways to be effective. It also gave me very good information on how to reach out to students who are not fully engaged and how to reach out to them for success. This made me think about how we need to be aware of tone, body language, listening, cues, gestures, etc. if we utilize video presentations or recorded sessions. In the written aspect it is not always easy to determine the tone and different cultures could interpret things differently. How we respond to students when they do something "wrong" or respond incorrectly can greatly influence how they respond to the online experience.
