Getting to Know Your Online Students

The following is a guest blog post by Beth Knuth. Beth is one of our online eLo Web Design instructors along with being a business teacher (@nvhsbusiness) at Neuqua Valley High School in Naperville, IL. In this post, Beth shares five tips for teachers to follow in order to get to know your students in a virtual environment.

I started teaching online courses about 8 years ago. It started with a summer Consumer Economics course in which I met with the students once at the beginning of the summer to give them a brief orientation. After this point, I never saw their faces again! It was almost as I was teaching a class of invisible people. I would get emails and submissions now and then, but there was nothing behind the name. I struggled as a teacher not getting to know my class, especially since interacting with students is one of my favorite parts of teaching!

As the years went by, online classes evolved and went from basic dropbox submissions to discussion boards, video chats, and virtual discussions. Students names on my roster turned into pictures of faces (which was great!) and we as online teachers were provided with more ways to communicate with students. Along with this evolution of technology, I found more ways to interact with my class which in turn gave me a renewed interest in teaching online courses.

Here are a few ways that I have gotten to know my students online. This list is not all-encompassing, but highlights a few strategies that I have found helpful! I would love to hear any strategies that other online teachers have used.

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• Instead of diving into the curriculum immediately, do some sort of virtual “ice-breaker” activity to make the students interact with the instructor and fellow students. In my Web Design class this year I had the students make a brief website about themselves using the free and easy to use website weebly.com. Students created 3 pages about themselves incorporating pictures and interactive links to their favorite websites, movies, hobbies, etc. You could do this activity for any course, it just happened to fit in nicely with my curriculum! The important thing here is to make part of the assignment for students to respond to at least two other students in class in which they have something in common. This gets students interacting and finding commonalities. Don’t forget to make a website about yourself as the instructor to post for students - they want to get to know you too! 

• Make it a rule as an instructor to post an announcement at least every other day, if not every day. Students want to know you are out there! In addition to eLo, I also am an adjunct instructor through National Louis University in which I teach an Online Communications course. I will feature “Super Star” students in my announcements and tell their classmates what made their submission so spectacular. I direct students to this star student’s discussion post submission which often spurs more interaction between students. As an added bonus, the featured student feels really special that you recognized their work! 

• Speaking of discussion boards...be active in them! Reply to student posts and relate to what they are saying using specific examples from your own life and experiences. Student discussions become richer in language when they know their teacher is participating, and it is an additional way to connect with students. Sure this may take a little time, but if you can plan discussions around other assignments you won’t feel overwhelmed with grading. 

• Don’t be afraid to send positive individualized emails to students when they are working hard! Often as teachers we are busy reaching out to the students that are struggling, but it is just as important to reach out to the students that are doing well. This builds great rapport between students and teachers. 

• The most obvious part of connecting with students is face-to-face. With technology we are able to do this through video chats and conferences. However, not all of us have the luxury of using this technology on a regular basis. (In my case, with a 3-year-old at home, it is rare to have a serious conversation with any adult let alone with a student!) Instead, don’t be afraid to meet with the student one-on-one in a school setting if needed or if video chats are out of the question. I have traveled during my eLo time to various schools in the Consortium to meet with students that need a little extra encouragement or guidance. Sometimes it’s the extra nudge that really helps a student to succeed! 

Overall, connecting and building relationships with students in an online environment is a bit more challenging, but definitely not impossible. Through a variety of strategies you can get to know your students just as well, if not better, than your face-to-face classes! Please share any other ideas you have used as an online teacher with a response to my post.

Follow Beth K @nvhsbusiness