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Recently, I worked with a colleague to conduct student surveys with currently enrolled students and alumni from the first decade of our distance MDiv program. We asked students what they would like our faculty to know about their teaching strategies for the online portions of classes. About two-thirds of respondents mentioned a desire for increased faculty presence and investment in the course. In some cases, these were very strongly worded: “Faculty participation and engagement online is a make or break factor for the class.” “Beyond a reasonably well-designed course, the instructor(s) showing they are present and attentive is the most important aspect.” “And seriously folks, just because the coursework is online is no excuse for the instructor to not be present in the class . . . . Be present with us. Respond to our posts as if you were responding to our embodied voice breathing the same air at the same time. Don't make us self-teach ourselves with your materials and not with your experience/presence.” Now, faculty responses to this data were mixed. Rightfully so, they felt that in the structuring of the class, the selection of materials to engage, the formation of discussion questions, responding to student posts, providing instructions for written assignments, and numerous other ways, they were regularly “in” their classes. But all of this work that the faculty member put into designing and implementing the course did not always equate to the student’s sense that faculty were present in real time, invested in student learning, and cared for them as people. And for most of our students, this social presence was the most critical factor for good online teaching. Faculty simply weren’t perceived by students as “being there” when they were present in textual form. And, here I am stretching a bit beyond my data, but I believe students often experience textual communication from faculty as evaluative, directive, and disembodied. In creative nonfiction and memoir genres many writers can make themselves socially present through the written word. But, this feat takes a different kind of writing than most faculty are trained to do. The ways we are trained to write as academics tend to communicate a distant expert, a not-so-humanizing aspect of our teaching selves. One nearly effortless way for faculty to make themselves more socially present in an online course is by creating a kind of connective tissue throughout the class in the use of short, informal videos. As a teaching coach to online faculty, I was initially pretty anti-video. I worried that talking head videos were just a non-dialogical information dump, either through reading written lectures to present content or worse, recording lectures in a residential class and using them later for an online section. These were not the kinds of videos our students desired. The videos that the students felt created social presence often involved faculty just hitting record on their laptop and chatting in real time. Faculty were using these videos to share weekly updates about how the class was going, to give brief lecturettes to help students navigate difficult material, to provide a frame for the topic of the week and identify its importance, to offer introductions to readings or other course materials, and to coach for success on writing assignments. While it feels awkward to stare meaningfully into the top of your computer screen and speak directly to students, these videos presenced faculty in a very different way than either voice recording or textual communication. Students felt more connected to those faculty who used these short, informal videos. Most of the time, these videos contained the kind of offhanded explanatory speaking that you might do in the first and last five minutes of class, when you present an assignment, or in response to student questions. Our students marked the importance of these video appearances in their sense of having access to and benefitting from the expertise of the professor, establishing a relationship and sense of trust in the professor, helping with course integration, and believing that the professor was actively guiding the course. Of course, their power to invoke the presence and care of the faculty diminished when the videos were obviously designed for an earlier class, which makes me regret my choice to ever change my hair length and style. Professionally staged or highly polished videos also reduce the communication of a caring human presence. Sitting in the office speaking into a phone camera may feel like a ridiculous way to connect with students, but it turns out that the vulnerability of offering your regular teacher-self helps you be present to your students in powerful ways.

Recently I was working with my IT colleague, Dr. Justin Barber, on a project to use machine learning to gather data about student experience in our hybrid classes from our LMS (Learning Management System). Big data comes to theological education! Our curriculum committee was testing a common perception that our distance students felt better about their experience in the classes after they had been together on campus. To test this assumption, we asked Justin to do something called “sentiment analysis” on the discussion forums to see how the emotional tenor of their interactions changed once they had been together in space and time. Full disclosure: Justin is brilliant, and I often have no idea what AI (Artificial Intelligence) magic he has rendered. So, we always have to sit down for him to explain the results to me. Before performing the sentiment analysis, we summarized the aggregate posts of each discussion with three keywords to get a sense of the content of each discussion (excluding the common words that occur in almost every post like "the", "a", etc.). Then these three words would be analyzed before and after the campus visits to see if they were, on the whole, more positive after the students had been together. The three word combinations were often just the topic for the week and two key related terms. Hilariously, a colleague’s class in “Ancient and Emerging Practices” came up with the trio: church, tickle, sexuality. I had to explain to Justin who Phyllis Tickle was when he became concerned about what on earth was going on in that class. But as we scrolled through data from hundreds of forums over five years of data, week by week, the main word that showed up again and again was “thanks.” Thanks. As we scrolled, I was reminded of so many student posts that began with that word. “Thanks for sharing that story.” “Thanks for bringing up that topic, because I was wondering about it, too.” “Thanks for making that clearer, because when I read it I was totally confused.” While the results of the sentiment analysis were largely insignificant, this moment of realization of the function of gratitude in our online classrooms has stuck with me. It drew together something in my lived experience, but it was still surprising how often that it made the top three. Thanks. Not only in classes where emotional intelligence and personal sharing is expected, such as pastoral care courses, but in history classes, Bible classes, comparative religion classes. Many faculty fear a loss of relationality in online classes. They worry that peer-to-peer learning is diminished, that learning becomes a form of correspondence course between students and faculty. In my doctoral pedagogy class, students worry that conversations in online forums will mimic the trolling vitriol of Twitter comments. But here was dispassionate evidence that an attitude of respectful engagement was the overwhelming norm in all of our classes. In simple list form, we discovered over and over again the simple acknowledgement of indebtedness to another student: Thanks. As Justin and I processed this surprising result, we talked about how some of this polite deference might be a reflection of the somewhat tenuous nature of online community. Perhaps in situations where relationships aren’t reinforced by regular embodied interaction, a level of additional respect becomes a habitual marker of conversation in order to maintain connection and compensate for the way text doesn’t communicate body language, tone, or attentiveness. More cynically, this profusion of thanks might be a signal of perfunctory niceness, something that both our majority white female student population and church-related vocation students are socialized to perform. I like to think of this habit of gratitude as a way that students hold one another’s stories and learnings as gift. The esteemed religious educator Dr. Anne Streaty Wimberly once led a retreat in a church that I later served as youth minister. Even years later, the young people in that community remembered her as the “thank you for sharing lady” because she had taught them to receive every word spoken into the circle as gift, which required verbalized gratitude. Opening up a laptop in a faraway city to re-enter a challenging class alone can be a difficult discipline, particularly for students who already have very busy lives. Finding colleagues there who hold your contributions with respect and gratitude makes that space more gracious and inviting. And so our students, without our prompting, learned together to say thanks.

The greatest potential of the online learning environment is its capacity to foster high levels of interactive learning that lead to “deep understanding.” The instructor’s role is critical to making this happen. The manner and frequency of the instructor’s response to students in the discussion forums is what tends to determine the quality of the learning experience. Instructional Responses Your ability to provide effective instructional feedback on your courses discussion forums will be the key to successful student learning. For effectiveness, instructors should minimize non-instructional responses and maximize instructional prompts. While your instructional prompts will be in response to an individual student’s post, it should serve the purpose of moving the discussion along for the class as a whole. Pay close attention to your student’s posts. If a student’s response is correct, give a short, overt affirmation. If a student’s FORMAT in responding is incorrect, say so and allow the student to correct the post. If a student’s CONTENT response is incorrect (factually wrong, reflects a misunderstanding), provide corrective feedback. When reviewing your students’ responses, judge critically. Look for correct responses and expected incorrect response and use them as opportunities for instructional prompts. Allow time for students to think about and compose responses to complex questions. Use student responses as opportunities to refer the class members to readings or instructional content. INSTRUCTIONAL PROMPTS Instructional prompts are those instructor responses that help the students move toward “deep understanding” of the course concepts. Here are eight types of instructional prompts you can use when responding to student posts online. These prompts are directly correlated to facets of critical thinking. Critical Thinking Prompts Why do you say so? Where else might that idea apply? Is that your opinion, or did you overhear that? What might be the consequences of that action? What might someone else say about that? What would that take? How did you arrive at that opinion? Elaboration Prompts Could you go into that in more detail? I would expand that idea by saying . . . . Who can expand on that idea from your own context/experience? I’m not sure now that applies. Can you build on that idea more? Clarification Prompts What exactly do you mean? Do I understand you to mean . . . ? Please provide an example to help us understand your point of view. Can you provide a short definition for how you are using that term? Comparison Prompts That’s an interesting statement. How does that compare with what was previously said? With what the author of the text claimed? I might compare that with . . . . Do you think that’s a fair comparison? I see the following similarities in the ideas presented so far . . . . What others do you see? Contrasting Prompts How would you contrast your idea to the one that (name of other) gave previously? In contrast to your statement, I think . . . . I see that idea as different from his/her’s in these ways . . . . How does your interpretation contrast with the author’s (with another student)? Can you offer a contrasting view of opinion? Justification Prompts How would you defend that statement against . . . ? What assumptions are you basing that on? Tell me why you think that idea/solution would work. Evaluation Prompts What is your reaction to that idea? My reaction to that/your idea is . . . . What do you think of that idea? Tell me why you think your idea/solution is better. While these prompts also work in the classroom environment, the immediacy of the classroom discussion and the limitations of time constraints make it a challenge for a teacher to engage in deep learning dialogue. The online environment provides the instructor with the luxury of analyzing student responses, identifying the best feedback-prompt to use, and formulating the response to help the student, and the class, move toward deeper learning. Using a hybrid format, an instruction can determine which course components may be best to move to the online discussion forum to allow for more process and discussion so the instructor can be more effective in the use of instructional prompts for deeper learning.

If communication were easy, all marriages would be made in heaven, differing perspectives would be valued, all students would be well rested and at ease, and we would get the sauce we asked for with our McNuggets. So much for the Better Universe. Here in this one, we instructors spend a lot of time trying to get across ideas that are perfectly clear in our heads to generally smart and willing learners. Often, it can feel like threading a needle with a climbing rope in a hailstorm. Sometimes, it is harder than that. Why Am I Communicating? Merlin Mann once said, “Never hit ‘Send’ on an email unless you know what you want to happen as a result.” Whenever communicating with students, it's worth asking, "Why am I doing this? What do I want to happen as a result?" ("Ah!" you say, being an academic and therefore the kind of person who can't wait to say this sort of thing, "Locution, illocution, and perlocution." That's fine.) Often, we are simply conveying information. What is the schedule, the readings, the assignments, the rubrics; where is the feedback; when is the review, the exam, the due date for the paper; how does one reach the instructor, how does one cite sources. Learners need the info. Hopefully, another purpose is motivating learners. Think of geese honking one another along in their V-formation on a chilly morning. "Hey, everyone got their reflection papers in on deadline: great professionalism, can't wait to read them. On to the next unit!" "Last push before final papers are due: get your sleep, eat well, try to remember why you cared about your paper topic in the first place, and let's run through the finish line!" Sometimes, we mean to model a behavior or an activity for learners. If my learners are engaged in a collaborative activity in an unfamiliar mode--a Twitter game, a group poem in a Google doc, a discussion-forum weeklong debate--then I may want to find a way to join as a participant, "showing the way" for learners who might hesitate to get themselves out onto the dance floor. An aspect of communication that happens to be much on my mind these days is disciplinary formation. In my case, the ongoing effort to help learners wrap their heads around what I mean by "biblical studies," its materials, and particularly its methods and principles. Biblical studies is not Bible Study. Biblical studies relies on publicly available evidence and explicit lines of reasoning, and does not grant methodological place to private revelation or sectarian doctrine. The subject matter of biblical studies is texts, not God. You don't get all of this over in a syllabus, or an introductory lecture. It's an ongoing communicative process. "What are we doing here, and how do we do it, and why this way and not another?" Any number of reasons to communicate could be added. Some of these are course correction ("Whoa y'all, remember that your responses to classmates have to substantively engage their own content, not just springboard off on your own thing"); self correction ("Sorry gang, I wrote two different due dates in the course documents; let's go with the later one, found in such-and-so doc on our Moodle site”); gathering information instead of disseminating it (a survey, a diagnostic quiz). There is no shortage of good reasons to communicate with learners, and it will do everyone good if I know what the purpose of each one is. How Should I Communicate This? A big part of the answer to this question derives from a prior question: "Who Should Hear This?" Deciding among your available channels (syllabus, email, blog post, Zoom meeting, dedicated course Twitter hash tag, YouTube video lecture, MP3 audio lecture, mumbling passive-aggressively in the hallways) mainly involves deciding on your audience. Sure, you know who you're talking to, but also, who do you want to be sure overhears it, and why? ("Ah!" you say, "Locution, illo..." except now nobody is listening.) Private communication is the norm for feedback ("You got a B-plus, and here's why"). But, what about that wonderful form of feedback, "Catching the learner doing something right"? Alexis showed exemplary leadership moderating her small group this week. I can tell her so via email, and she may find that motivating, but what I really need is for her small-group colleagues Brad, Charlise, and Darius to overhear this since they will be moderating in future weeks. So, I will praise Alexis in whichever venue this work is happening (discussion forum, Google Doc, Twitter thread). Heads up, Brad and company! As for that disciplinary formation I'm working on. I know from experience how much back-and-forth this can involve. My explanations are prone to misunderstanding; learners have substantive pre-formation to unpack and unlearn; I'm still discovering what kinds of questions my efforts will elicit. If anything calls for synchronic discourse (Zoom meeting, Chat session, webinar), this does. Still, no reason not to supplement with asynchronous tools: an Ask-Me-Anything (About Biblical Studies) discussion forum, for example, or a Glossary built by learners over the course of the semester (on the Learning Management System? as a Google Doc with a shareable link?). Also, disciplinary formation lends itself to a bit of "public theology" if possible. My learners aren't the only ones confused about what goes on in my field, and it's not like "Bible" doesn't have a prominent place in public discourse and policy. How about a webinar or social-media event open to the public? ("Students, prepare your pseudonyms, we have incoming!") What is a syllabus for? Twenty years of teaching and I still can't quite say. I tend to tick-tock over time between the 3-page bare-bones syllabus (with other course docs picking up the slack: schedule, rubrics, policies, weekly instructions) and the 39-page behemoth that serves as The Complete and Final Revelation of Your Instructor to Her Flock (it never is). If I am going with multiple course docs all living in an LMS, then learners will need these to refer to one another: the course docs cross-reference each other, and the syllabus cross-references everything. It's not a scavenger hunt. (But you could include a real Scavenger Hunt through the course docs as a first-week activity!) Of course, you can't use a tool you've never heard of (and I warn against using one in the field you've not tried first privately). Twitter, Google Docs, Slack, Discord, Zoom, YouTube, WordPress . . . pick one when you're in the mood and get some friends to take it out with you for a spin: gossip, play a game, exchange recipes. If nothing else, you'll have something to say at parties besides "Ah! Locution . . . ." Brooke Lester Assistant Professor Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary

Selecting reading and viewing material for any course can be challenging. Institutional policies may limit instructor’s options to titles adopted by a department or to a program’s contracted curricular materials. Some schools require use of a rental system and/or impose cost parameters. For the online instructor, additional complications arise. The obstacles might be logistical. When students live at a distance from a campus, they may not have the foresight to order books or course-paks in a timely manner or may lack access to library reserves. If a class requires video content, a student might not subscribe to a particular streaming service. But more common concerns relate to format and learning purpose. I want to consider these items and explore the relationship between what we opt to assign and our pedagogical practice. In courses taught fully online, the instructor must decide whether to make all of the class materials available electronically. I find that my students increasingly prefer reading on their devices and appreciate the opportunity to click directly through to an assignment. That reality is getting easier to make happen. Appropriate translations of religious texts are readily available. The ability to download articles and chapters in a pdf from library holdings also offers options. When requiring movies or documentaries, an institutional subscription to a streaming service like Swank permits a single-click viewing experience. Additionally, some publishers, like Point of View ) specialize in 1500-word pieces on specific topics that can be purchased inexpensively in Kindle-ready form. And scholars in the field are producing free content such as The Religious Studies Project’s podcasts  (https://www.religiousstudiesproject.com/podcast/), Andrew Henry’s Religion for Breakfast videos (https://www.youtube.com/user/ReligionForBreakfast/featured), Bible Odyssey (the Society of Biblical Literature’s site for short articles, videos, and other materials focused on critical examination of various subjects related to the Bible and its study; https://www.bibleodyssey.org/) that are usable in a classroom setting But research has demonstrated that students resist clicking on too many different assignment links and frequently lose energy before working through them all. They know that a significant number of short readings or videos can be just as time consuming, and feel just as burdensome, as one longer assignment. Thus, strategizing about what resources to employ and how to get students reading or viewing must always be grounded in what information we want mastered in a class. For example, many of us–online or not–no longer emphasize testing on dates, names, places, and similar specifics once typical of lecture and textbook-based learning, even if the study of a subject may demand familiarity with such details. When one can access factual information with a few, swift keystrokes, asking students to devote significant out-of-class time to reading or viewing, taking notes, assessing what is valuable, memorizing, and then reproducing it all on a quiz feels antiquated. We instead seek to reduce the onerous qualities of learning foundational material and target, in brief, acquiring knowledge of key topics or concepts. In the online environment, how to achieve this requires going beyond simply providing links to assignments. For example, we can construct reading and viewing with embedded “check-ins” that ensure student contact with basic terminology and concepts. Indeed, this practice can be formulated to provide immediate feedback and personalized suggestions of linked resources for a term or an idea a student does not grasp. This practice thereby expands learning (while reading or viewing) by teaching both content and how to identify and seek further clarifications regarding important material. Good design can also move beyond students answering simple feedback questions and toward demonstrating understanding, interpretation, and application. This approach is particularly important with longer readings or viewings (such as novels or movies), as well as with assignments that may be difficult going (reading theory, for instance). Again, technology permits querying students as they work, thus promoting not only completion of reading and viewing assignments in full, but also comprehension via critical immersion in the material that can then be integrated into class discussions, paper writing, or research activities. Without doubt, building these resources requires additional time for the instructor (and can involve the need for some technical expertise depending on the learning management system utilized). Links for more in-depth study also require regular updating. The investment at the front-end, however, can formulate assignments that are a better fit for the online environment given students often work asynchronously in diverse locations and may benefit from guidance not available through regular contact with other students or the instructor in the classroom or on campus. Moving away from familiar learning practices might feel strange to instructors who come to the online world from face-to-face classrooms and may not be digital natives. But there are two important points to ponder. First, we are more and more teaching students who have grown up attached to devices that have shaped their learning habits. We want to capitalize on the potential of what is already in their hands. In fact, figuring out how to maximize the strengths of the available technologies in service of our goals is what every generation of instructors does, even if not quite at the same rapid pace required of us today. Second, we need to be more intentional about cultivating our own pedagogical awareness. Graduate schools focus on producing scholars rather than classroom teachers. As new instructors, we thus often replicate teaching that worked for us until we figure out our own styles along the way. But in navigating today’s changing landscape of higher education, we should seek deliberate matching between where we want to see our students end up and how we develop assignments (reading, viewing, and assessment activities) that get us there. That work starts with the pedagogical choices we make about the content for a course, how students access it, and what we do to help them navigate it.

My journey into online education was indirect. I started out as a missionary-graduate student who was working on a Master of Arts degree from overseas. My first distance learning class was on cassette tape, but soon after our school developed online courses in which the primary interaction was through listservs. A few years later we saw the emergence of learning management systems (LMS) such as Embanet, WebCT, and Blackboard. Remember those days? In spite of the primitive digital medium we used, the courses worked. I attained both a broad and deep level of knowledge of Christian thought in these courses because our professor grounded his assignments and email discussions on good educational theory. At the time I hadn’t studied the literature of educational theory, but as my own post-missionary career began to overlap significantly with online education, I was determined to gain a better understanding of what kind of theory leads to effective online courses. While combing through the literature, I noticed that there seemed to be a philosophical connection between constructivism and distance learning. I kept digging to find out the reason behind this affinity between the two; at one point, I pulled philosophical layers back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. What I found was that there have always been advocates for “learning by doing” and there have always been those who have regarded experiential learning as anathema. Emerging from the cross-fire, however, was John Dewey and his integration of the scientific method with social science research during the Progressivism period in the early 20th century. In Experience and Education (1938), Dewey described what happens when one’s life experiences intersect with new concepts or skills. He called this intersection the “learning situation” (pp 42-43). His book did not provide a diagram, but I imagine that if Dewey had sketched out this phenomenon it would have looked something like this: Note that the horizontal axis represents the continuity of past, present, and future experiences. The vertical axis represents a continuum of interactions ranging from personal reflection to interaction with people, places, and events. The two axes can move up and down and side to side depending on the connecting point between experience and interaction, but where the two meet is where the learning situation occurs. The metacognition swirl is a bit anachronistic, but I wanted the diagram to indicate the place where deeper reflection about one’s learning experience might take place. This simple “learning situation” as described by Dewey illustrates well the dynamic between student experiences and learning new concepts and skills. As I considered how to translate the learning situation into online education, I wanted to design courses that made use of learners’ past experiences and current contexts as resources for learning. Steve and Mary Lowes (2010) also contributed to my thinking for how to see the individual contexts of students separated by time and space as unique and relevant learning laboratories. (See also Bronfenbrenner 1979).  The thought world of experiential learning and my applications of it to online course design and facilitation led me to the next step of my quest when McGaughy, McDonald, and I (2018) completed a qualitative research project based on the following research question: “In what ways does the interaction of past experiences and present community impact learning online?” We selected an online course used for study abroad programs at our institution, and through a triangulation of course evidence and a survey, we looked for common themes that addressed experiences of the students and their learning environment online. Three salient themes emerged: flexibility, travel, and communication. The theme flexibility represented both time and space. Students in the online program were empowered to study when and where it was most beneficial to their learning experiences. Although flexibility did not describe how experiences directly impacted learning, the participants’ descriptions of their flexible study times and locations shed light onto the intersection of context and learning. Travel tied directly into the research question. Participants reported how previous travels helped them relate to the topics of their online course. They also mentioned how encounters with people overseas opened their minds to intercultural communication concerns as well as recognizing variations of worldview. Expressions like “really made me think” and “my eyes were opened” related evidence for real-world experiences that had a direct impact on learning. Communication provided the bridge between the online medium and context of the student. As participants discussed matters related to communication, they would reflect on discussion boards, interactions with their professor, as well as face-to-face conversations with people at their sites. Interactions with students online led to “new insights” and “different points of view.” Conversations with people outside of class in their context also contributed to students’ learning new ideas and perspectives. This study provided evidence of Dewey’s learning situation in an online course, and the implications for distance education are important. As we imagine how to design, create, and facilitate online courses, we need to eradicate from our minds the mythological student who has been closed off from human contact and is unable to make cognitive connections between what they are learning and how it applies in their contexts. Rather, imagine our students as individuals who are surrounded by a learning laboratory, but also connected to a network of classmates in a shared digital learning space. Students who take courses online deserve creative course designs that maximize the online tools as well as point them to real-time, face-to-face learning experiences. As we envision the road ahead in the age of education without walls, consider these words of Dewey, “. . .  it is not of new versus old education nor of progressive against traditional education but a question of what anything whatever must be to be worthy of the name education” (1938, p 90). Works cited: Bronfenbrenner, U. (1979). The ecology of human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Touchstone. Lowe, S. D., & Lowe, M. E. (2010). Spiritual formation in theological distance education: An ecosystems model. Christian Education Journal, 3, 7(no. 1), 85-102. Westbrook, T. P., McGaughy, M., & McDonald, J. (2018). An investigation into the implications of Dewey’s “Learning Situation” for Online Education. NET: An eJournal of Faith-Based Distance Learning, 2.

Like so many aspects of the online course, we must pre-plan student interaction and incorporate it into the course at the design stage. I find it helpful to distinguish between organizational interaction (exchanges that help learners understand, and thrive in, the structures of the course) and social interaction (ways that the instructor mediates social presence to learners and helps them do the same with the instructor and with one another). Here, I focus on organizational interaction. In a later post, I will focus on mediating social presence online. A running theme animating the following suggestions is "What do we owe our learners?" It's easy to get caught up in easy bashing on "entitled students," and it's true that learners are sometimes unskilled in knowing reasonable from unreasonable expectations in higher education (it's a weird environment!). But in our more measured moments, instructors acknowledge that we have obligations to our students, among which I include clarity of expectations and a willingness to admit the imperfections of our course designs. Pre-Term Communication: Interacting with learners online begins when class registration opens, months before the term begins. Learners considering your online course have a right to know what they are getting into. A syllabus for the online class is a learner's first chance to discern whether the class is a good fit. Before registering, a learner should know: information about required synchronous sessions: Zoom, Skype, Google Hangouts, etc. the shape, or "flow," of a typical week or unit; for example, "Readings are due Mondays," "Discussion forum posts are due Tuesdays with replies to peers by Fridays," "Short written assignments are due at the end of every three-week unit." the planned assignments and activities; these may be in brief "draft" form but must be reliable policies: participation policies, late work policies, disability/accommodation policies, academic integrity policies, instructor contact policies Don't stop at the registration point: email registered learners a month before the first day of the term, directing them to the syllabus and reminding them of first-week activities and requirements. Do it again at the two-week mark, and once more the day before the term begins. This is the time for potential students to weed themselves out. If your online class is not the right fit for a learner, better for everyone if they realize it now, rather than in the third week of your class! Weed now, or pay later. Which brings us to . . . Squeeze them out! This is a tough interaction, but necessary. If I am confident that all my registered learners have received the information they need about early-term expectations, then with a clear conscience I can employ a draconian first-week participation policy . . . and I do employ a draconian first-week participation policy. My reason for this is that (at least in my experience) there will be a few students who sort of drift in around the middle of the second week, or even later, now ready to start getting involved. Without exception (again in my experience), these learners will not prove to be a good fit in terms of meeting deadlines and accomplishing work according to instructions. By requiring learners to have participated in all activities during the first week (on penalty of an immediate withdrawal), these students are spared a likely failing grade, and these students will now NOT soak up a disproportionate block of the instructor's time and attention at the expense of other learners. Those who show up have a right to our time and attention, and students not yet prepared to succeed have a right to be dealt with honestly. Squeeze them out. Mid-term evaluations: In this instance, I mean "learners evaluating you." (Hopefully, your learners have been receiving early and frequent feedback on their own work from the instructor.) By allowing learners to evaluate their learning experience mid-term, and by responding promptly and honestly, you communicate to learners that their experience matters. Even small "mid-course corrections" in response to learner evaluations can pay off large dividends in the form of student goodwill . . . right at the time in the calendar when learners and instructors alike are prone to grow frazzled and, shall we say, disenchanted with one another. Of course, also designed into the course will be the modes and means of interactions: emails, video or audio lectures, remote office hours, possible synchronous sessions, social media, and so on. I will address these in a later post on mediating social presence in the online course.

Evaluations of faculty, both peer and student, can be a valuable part of the teaching landscape. Without doubt, faculty peers see strengths and weaknesses an individual instructor might not otherwise notice. Similarly, asking students about their experiences yields important insight into how learning happens--if one poses the right questions. Well-designed instruments interpreted with a critical eye by employers should be standard. For online instruction, however, particular downsides emerge that often prove dicey for faculty whose merit pay, tenure and promotion considerations, and, most especially, contract status depends, even if only in part, on the results. Online faculty must proactively design processes that handle the challenges of the online environment appropriately. While I have by no means mastered making evaluation of my online courses helpful, I do have observations about what I have tried and what I am planning to do to negotiate this required process more thoughtfully. When a peer evaluator lacks experience with online learning, or does not have familiarity with best practices for creating, mounting, and running an online course, the utility of the evaluation can come into question. Too often an idealized imagination of the traditional classroom remains the model by which a course is judged, rather than looking at the online experience for what it offers. If a university employs a given standard, like Quality Matters, for online course development, having peer evaluators look through that prism can be useful (https://www.qualitymatters.org/qa-resources/rubric-standards/higher-ed-rubric). The elements outlined provide clear criteria for assessment. Additionally, affording a faculty member the opportunity for peer evaluation from other online instructors or learning technology designers, even if they are not subject matter experts, can also be valuable. My university is now doing “teaching squares” for online instructors where we get together and work through one another’s courses. Seeing how other online faculty structure learning, and hearing feedback about my course format and assignments generated new ideas and helped me see where I needed to improve. Indeed, I would welcome a combination for peer evaluation that blended the insights of other online instructors with respect to the medium and what departmental colleagues would note about content. In the end, these options all stress one thing: that the purpose of peer evaluations ought to be to improve student outcomes by focusing on pedagogical practice. Regarding student evaluations, online instructors already know what studies demonstrate: online courses tend to yield lower ratings for faculty than face-to-face courses. This result likely stems, in part, from the lack of personal contact built up in weekly face-to-face meetings. Relationship mitigate against harshness in evaluation. But this also serves as a reminder that faculty presence, however it is accomplished in online classrooms, is important. While faculty members cannot completely alleviate the electronic remove, students still need to see faculty members in videos and engaged in discussion. They continue to want personal interactions, whether it be through email, text or video messaging, or phone calls. Structuring that contact into the course is vital. Returning work and inquiries promptly also proves important. The urgency of our online lives drives expectations here, so faculty must set up precise standards for communication and stick to them. Students might not be able to get an answer to a question posted at 2:00 a.m., for example, but it is not unreasonable to expect an answer to come within the next 12 hours in most cases. Many students evaluate faculty based on expectations about online courses and they often anticipate online options will be easier than face-to-face classes. Institutional messaging around online options can plant that idea. “Learn anytime, anywhere” our promotions might say, as if students can successfully navigate a class while strolling the aisles of the grocery store or pausing briefly between serving customers on the job.  Faculty, therefore, must establish detailed instructions for assignments and specific rubrics for grading that can help learners understand what they need to accomplish. Still, disappointments in this arena can lead to frustrations expressed via end of term evaluations. More helpful options might include evaluations geared to each assignment, perhaps even completed when the assignment is turned in. What did a student learn from completing that task? How did the assignment relate to the goals of the course? If faculty include these elements in their course design, it can alleviate problems along the way and serve to remind students at the close of a term about what they achieved. Likewise, making students partners in their own learning asks for a higher level of reflective awareness. Foregrounding why a student enrolled in a course, what the student wants to gain by completing it, and how it might relate to overall academic goals can be a great starting exercise because it makes students clarify expectations. Instructors get a snapshot of why students show up and the opportunity to engage in discussion of where faculty expectations may correspond to those of students, where they may differ, and why. Modifications, even if only mental, can happen through this exercise and students can come to see faculty as partners and guides in learning as opposed to obstacles. In the end, we must acknowledge that evaluations will remain a fact of faculty life. How to make them less punitive–not focused on faculty shortcomings or “consumer satisfaction” measures–and more formative, aimed to achieving educational purpose, should always be a goal for faculty and administrators. Adapting the evaluation form to the delivery method of a course is a part of that process.

I spent most of my early teaching online trying to figure out how to make key aspects of residential teaching and learning—interactive lecturing, organic discussion, respect for diversities—possible in online contexts. I’ve sometimes wondered: “Will teaching online at some point begin to enhance what I think I already know about teaching well residentially?” The answer is yes. And the scope is surprising. Most educators work out their teaching pedagogy and practices in residential spaces. How educators teach is shaped by how we were educated, mentored, and seasoned by residential teaching practices. So it is natural to picture a one-directional flow of impact: finding adaptive ways to bring the best of good residential teaching into online course design. Yet the enhancements can flow in reverse, making room for fruitful bi-directional cross-fertilization. There is more to say, but here is a big picture view to whet the appetite. Supporting More Equitable Conversations: Teaching online has matured the strategies I use for fostering more robust and equitable conversations in the residential classroom. Discussion dynamics online become more democratic when each student is equally invited and expected to contribute to conversation. In those moments, the peer-to-peer learning intensifies because all voices are heard even in the midst of sometimes hard gender and racial dynamics. In residential spaces, minority, international, and women students frequently aren’t given adequate space to enter into large group conversations. And some of the brightest male and female students process internally or in writing. I know the power of each student’s voice because I read assignments. But the most trenchant student perspectives in a residential course are often not heard by peers. Online teaching has prompted me to experiment with residential teaching strategies that mimic the more democratic online discussion. One successful strategy is to invite every student to write three sentences on a discussion topic; then open the discussion with each student selecting and reading the sentence of their choice. Another tactic is to have a less vocal student “unlock” a discussion with a first word on the topic, and another less vocal student “close” the conversation with the concluding word. Resourcing Complex Life Contexts: Online teaching has also widened my view of the resources students bring to a residential classroom from their own backgrounds and life contexts. Online course assignments and learning activities ask students to connect what they are learning to their professional, personal, or cultural contexts. This makes learning more meaningful and applicable, and expands the contextual awareness of both peers and educators. Residential classrooms are full of the same kinds of resources which often go untapped. I have become more intentional about utilizing free-writing moments in class or pair and share opportunities for students to connect learning to their life contexts. In residential course assignments I am now more explicit about expecting and rewarding innovative connections to life contexts that expand the contextual awareness of the entire class. Prioritizing Desired Competencies: Teaching online has also challenged me across teaching contexts to be more explicit not only about what I want students to know, but what I want to see students be able to do. For example, in an online theology course I want students to learn how to respectfully engage one another online around complex aspects of Christology. I realized I had a similar “hidden” objective in the residential version of the course which is now in the syllabus. Prompted by online experimentation, I have also reframed some residential course objectives as desired competencies a student must demonstrate by the end of a course. For example, I added three prayer competencies in a residential course on Trinitarian themes: a well-crafted pastoral prayer, a memorized scriptural benediction, and an unscripted blessing and anointing. In these competencies, students could see the beauty and pastoral impact of Trinitarian language. And I could celebrate and more accurately evaluate not only maturing knowledge but also new capacities and skills. Respecting Complex Life Contexts: In residential courses I am now more intentional about respecting students’ time by selecting strong but accessible readings, scaffolding assignments with straightforward expectations, and affirming good communication around the life challenges impacting their learning. Online courses are tailored to professional and working adults who must multitask across layered responsibilities: child or elder care, volunteer work, job commitments, full or part-time pastoral leadership, and graduate theological education. I remind students online that my own life is similarly complex. Mutual kindness and reasonable expectations are essential; I do not expect them to be online 24/7 and I deserve the same consideration. This has alerted me to the ways in which all of my students, including residential, are adults with complex life commitments and circumstances. I need to honor time on all sides and promote clear and open communication in both kinds of teaching spaces. These are some of the ways fruitful bi-directional cross-fertilization can happen between online and residential spaces of teaching and learning. There is much more to say. Stay tuned.

George Bernard Shaw, recipient of the 1925 Noble Prize in Literature and award-winning Irish playwright, famously said: “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place.” As I reflect back on my years of online instruction, I confess: I’ve made this mistake. I often assumed that students understood a post, an email, or a video I’ve made when they did not. Harder still is letting students know that the instructor is “on their side” and wishes their every success. Born from trial and error, here are my top 5 suggestions on the most effective ways for teachers to communicate with students online. 1. Make first contact and do it early The worst mistake I think I ever made was sending my greetings to students on the first day of class. It’s too late. Students need a few days to get a sense of the course, read the syllabus, ask questions, and carve sacred space in their busy schedules for the hours they need to study. Trying to do all these things and start on the first module when the term begins never works out well. Instead, I contact students weeks before the beginning of classes. I make a video introduction so they can see and hear that I’m a “live” person. In the video (a short 2-3 minutes), I give my greetings, say something about myself, share a vision of the course and why it’s important, and keep “business matters” to a minimum. Strategically, I set up a pre-class orientation module for the students to work through prior to the start of class. There they see the assignments at a glance and get a walk-through of the course shell. When the term officially begins, they are ready to jump into the first module. 2. Have office hours every week and make them consistent In an age when using Zoom, Big Blue Button, Skype, or other video conferencing tools is not only convenient but free, I recommend setting up regular office hours when a student can count on a specific day and time each week that you are online to “meet.” I send out a Doodle poll early so students can indicate their free hours in a given week. I try to pick two 1-hour time slots when most students can join. Then every week, I’m online in Zoom or Big Blue Button waiting for students to drop into the video conferencing session. While I wait, I can grade, write emails, and get tasks done. But as soon a person enters the session, I drop everything and we talk. Someone almost always shows up. Office hours assure the student that the instructor is available and present. It lets students know you want to help. It also gives me a pulse of how students are doing. Are they drowning in, or sailing through, each module? Meeting them through office hours is a quick reality check 3. Receive advice and implement suggestions when you can At times, students have great suggestions. It may be the case that the suggestion cannot be implemented right away, but if it can be done, I try to do it. It could be as simple as extending a deadline on a particularly tough assignment or providing samples of good bibliographies. Whatever the suggestion, implementing it gives a needed sense of ownership to my students 4. If you make a mistake, don’t be afraid to admit it and offer a fair resolution I remember one time when I was not informed that more than half my class would be taking a week off in the semester to attend a conference sponsored by my seminary’s denomination. There was no way these students could attend the conference and complete the next module. I saw no way forward but to contact each student and apologize for not incorporating the conference in the class schedule. I talked with academic services and with their help adjusted the course to accommodate the conference week. I dropped one major assessment. It was messy but the students were graciously cooperative. Whew! 5. Keep it positive Students get discouraged easily. If they are feeling the course is too hard, we work out a plan to move forward, whether it’s extra tutoring or adjusting study habits. The most important thing is to keep it positive. Hope inspires perseverance. Perseverance is what we all need to succeed.