Instructional Clarity

There is that moment of anticipation right before your lecture starts and you realize that your students will form their opinion of you based on the first set of words that come out of your mouth. Actually, you realize that many of the students have already made up their minds about you based on your previous students’ comments, ratings, and/or reviews on Rate My Professors. Then comes that next sweet moment when you remember that you are teaching an online class and your lecture can be prerecorded, cross referenced, and perfected…and your students will love every minute of it…if you can get them to watch it at all…

Wait a second; isn’t an online class supposed to be easier for the instructor and a walk in the park for students? Isn’t all that you have to worry about copying and pasting the assignment guidelines and due dates into the learning management system and then you can kick back and wait for all of their eagerly prepared assignments to come dropping into your box like presents at a holiday party? Of course, if it was that easy, wouldn’t everyone being doing it?

It is not that easy and an online class does not pilot itself. In fact, in some ways, creating the sense of community that one finds in a face-to-face environment is more difficult online than people assume. The asynchronous postings and geographical separation that occurs in many online environments makes the crafting of assignments and community building more important, arguably, than in a traditional brick and mortar classroom. In addition, cultural and linguistic differences can influence interactions in ways different from a physical classroom. That is why these kinds of classroom interactions need to be structured, clear, and personalized.

To make students feel a sense of belonging in the course, it is important to make them feel included by reaching out, inviting them to participate, constructing experiences that are engaging, reference them by name, and make them feel valued as individuals by taking an interest in their stories while providing them opportunities to have fun in the first few weeks of the course according to Dr. Rena Palloff and Dr. Keith Pratt, authors of at least three books on online teaching methods and strategies. While these are important elements to make students feel like their participation in online courses is valued, they also need to get to know their professor through a variety of text based and multimedia elements. This helps to personalize the professor and humanize the learning environment.

None of this is possible without the instructor having a clear set of instructional objectives, knowledge of the tools at his/her disposal, and clarity of communication for student behavior. An intimate knowledge of how to operate the technology that is available for the online classroom and how to select the appropriate technological tool for the instructional job at hand is important to make sure that all instructional tools are aligned with the instructional tasks required of students. It is also important to make sure that the instructor understands how much experience the students have with the new technologies being required of them so that the instructor keeps students from feeling cognitive overload during tasks.

If the instructor is not careful and cognizant of the ways that students feel in the beginning of the course and sets up the course in a way that the students feel overwhelmed or devalued, their participation and continued presence in the course will diminish and they may drop from the course. Introducing students to an online course and building community is more important than in face-to-face environments. The separation of the students from the instructor and from one another can be a barrier, but when effectively planed for by an instructor, an online class can be as meaningful as a traditional class.