When I taught my course asynchronously, I arranged a 30-minute synchronous meeting once a week. I found that going completely online last year during the first six months of the pandemic caused a lot of anxiety. It helped the students to engage with the course when our online sessions began with a light-hearted "question of the day." We learned more about each other with questions like, "what is your favorite frozen treat and why" or "if you could invite anyone to dinner, who would it be?" I learned so much more about my student's personalities and got them into a more receptive state of mind.
