The very fact that my students are not in a classroom, but rather scattered across the country, and even the world, suggests that synchronous learning is ineffective. Rather, asynchronous learning should be used. This means employing other techniques and strategies to deliver content and provide feedback to students. In the physical classroom setting, for example, I was used to hearing students laugh at my jokes. Now, I have to just trust that someone found my material to be funny. That challenge is also shared with my students. Therefore, I take advantage of my talking head in the video class sessions to make the right amount of facial contortions and to vary the tone of my voice. When grading assignments, I understand that how I word my feedback is important so that I convey the right message. This can mean encouraging or discouraging certain practices from my students. With this feedback comes the tact necessary to get the right message across to the student, whether or not that individual knows my sense of humor, while also provding remarks that avoid reading too much like cookie-cutter responses.
