Students and faculty want more ways to engage and connect with each other and to build an active and engaged online learning community. Improvements we’ve made to the VPN and other technologies have enabled most students to have improved access to the tools needed for synchronous instruction. Here are recommendations to improve communication with students.
Communicate early and often
Let students know about changes or disruptions as early as possible, even if all the details aren’t in place yet, and let them know when they can expect more specific information. Be sure you have a working communication method to reach each student, or have them confirm that they can access the standard course communication tools.
Set expectations
Let students know how you plan to communicate with them, and how they should communicate with you, particularly for time-sensitive communications. Tell students both how often you expect them to check their email, and how quickly they can expect your response. Have a consistent communication strategy to avoid confusion: We recommend using the Sakai Announcements+Email tool so that any announcements will be archived for later access.
Hold live class meetings and online office hours using Zoom every week
Each faculty member must offer 2 hours of live, synchronous class meetings each week, as well as at least 2 hours of live “office hours” availability for your students. You have two assigned class meeting times per week which you can use, or you can move them – but ONLY if moving them doesn’t create conflicts for any of your students. And
remember: students are most responsive when faculty set a tone for online discussions with discussion guidelines.
Schedule times that work for your students (consider their locations/timezones). Publish the times along with the Zoom link prominently in your course site.
Manage your communications load
Consider keeping track of frequently asked questions and sending those replies out to everyone, or building an FAQ/information page in Sakai as a student reference. Use Sakai Announcements to both send information to students as well as archive it within Sakai.
Be clear and consistent with course information
Organize all content related to your course in a structured set of lessons, folders or links within Sakai. Tell students where those materials are, but also update your syllabus and post that. Ensure that assignment and activity instructions are explained in detail, and posted for reference. Make sure due dates are consistent wherever they are posted. Consider using the Sakai calendar or other straightforward method to collect and make clearly visible all tasks, course activities and deadlines for each week of class.
Group text apps
If you already use such an application in your course (Slack, MS Teams, WeChat, GroupMe, etc.), or if you know your students already all use such a tool and it would be easy to reach them that way, it can be the best option for communicating. However, we don’t recommend trying to establish use of a new tool during an emergency.
Note: do not conduct any academic work for your class in WeChat. It is fine to use WeChat for general outreach and connection with students; the Sakai Announcements tool can also be used for this. Talk with students about time management.