Increasing Retention in Online Courses

Increasing Retention in

Online Courses

3. Personalize and humanize your class.

1. Student Orientation and

Clear Expectations

2. Get an accurate number of participating students and clear rosters before census.

3. Personalize and humanize your class.

A connection with the instructor is important to students.

Students need to feel like they know their instructor.

1. Student Orientation and

Clear Expectations

2. Get an accurate number of participating students and clear rosters before census.

Make sure you have clear course policies listed in the syllabus:

In Cobb's research, students said things like:

• "I've never met the guy. I don't know if he's a good teacher or not."
• "The instructor doesn't care about what's going on in my life."
• "If the teacher doesn't care about how I do, neither do I."

It's a good idea to reach out to students who have not completed the check-in assignment the day before it is due to remind them of the deadline and that they may be dropped in the class for not completing the assignment.

• Consider holding an in-person (should be optional) and/or virtual student orientation at the beginning of the semester. A virtual orientation can be held via web-conferencing options such as ConferZoom.

Ray Cobb did research about why Hispanic students were not as successful as other students in online courses. He found that the reasons were very different than he predicted and were actually related to the instructor presence (or lack thereof) in online classes.

We have to find ways to bring the human element that we take for granted in face-to-face courses/interactions into online courses--it takes a little more thought and deliberate action.

Examples of check-in assignments:

• A syllabus quiz that requires students to answer questions about the syllabus and course policies
• An introduction/icebreaker discussion forum that requires students to introduce themselves and reply to other students

• Attendance Policy
• What does a student have to do to prove that they are active in the class at the beginning of the semester?
• What does a student have to do to remain active in the class throughout the semester? How often should a student log in and participate in order to not be dropped?
• Late Work Policy
• Will late work be accepted at all? What will the penalty be for late work?
• Communication Policy
• When will you be available to respond to students (for example, will you be available on the weekends)?
• How long should students expect to wait for a response?

You can do this easily through the Gradebook!

Make sure you have a check-in assignment that students are required to complete in the first few days to week of the class, and let students know that they may be dropped from the class if they don't complete the check-in assignment by a certain date.

This helps students get to know you, gives you an opportunity to show students how to navigate the Canvas site, and allows you to clarify the syllabus.

The goal is to identify and drop non-participating students by census date so you don't start with an inaccurate roster that includes students who will not actually participate in the class.

3. Personalize and humanize your class.

Ways to personalize your online class:

• Consider using a content page with customized content as your home page to create a welcoming starting place for students. You can add images, text, and even buttons that are linked to important areas of the class (Modules, Announcements, Grades, etc.)

• Start the class with an icebreaker/getting-to-know-you discussion and post your own answers.
• Participate in class discussions (in the thread that everyone can see). This is also an important part of regular effective contact in online/hybrid classes.
• Make sure your profile picture in Canvas is a photo of you rather than a photo of a flower, cartoon, etc.

• Create a welcome video to send out before the semester starts. Here's an example!

• Also, consider sending out "Welcome to Week X" videos every week to let students know what the goals and activities for the week are.

3. Personalize and humanize your class.

Ways to personalize your online class:

• Here's an example of a content page as a home page:

• Leave audio/video feedback for students in assignments. Canvas makes this really easy in Speedgrader!

• Instructor-created content that reflects you and your personality really helps to personalize your course. Video lectures with your image and/or voice are especially effective!
• Address students by name in personal communications and sign emails, messages, announcements, etc.

7. Set a positive and welcoming tone throughout the semester.

5. Use group projects and student interaction to create an online community.

6. Use web-conferencing to hold online office hours every week.

4. Intrusive instruction--reach out to students early and often.

5. Use group projects and student interaction to create an online community.

Setting up groups in a Canvas discussion:

6. Use web-conferencing to hold online office hours every week.

4. Intrusive instruction--reach out to students early and often.

7. Set a positive and welcoming tone throughout the semester.

Using Canvas Analytics

Students are often intimidated to reach out to instructors, and this can be especially true in the online environment where students can't just walk up to the instructor after class.

• Encourage students to add a photo of themselves as their Canvas profile picture. You can even make this worth points.
• It's a good idea to require students to respond to at least two other people in discussion forums.
• In discussions, you can use the "Groups" feature of Canvas to create smaller cohorts of students. For example, you can create a group of 15 students, and students will only see the posts of the students in their group in the discussion. This makes the discussion forums less overwhelming for students.
• You also have the option of selecting "Users must post before seeing replies" so students cannot see the posts of their peers until after they submit their initial post.

• It may seem obvious, but being friendly with students goes a long way.

Online office hours are a way to answer student questions, explain difficult concepts, or even conduct an online lecture.

Weekly synchronous contact is a requirement of LASC's Regular Effective Contact Policy, and an excellent way to do this is to hold weekly office hours through a web-conferencing option (ConferZoom or Conferences--I recommend ConferZoom!).

Through the course analytics, you can see course activity as a whole or by individual student.

J. Luke Wood is a professor and researcher who writes and researches about working with community college students, especially male students of color.

He emphasizes the need to avoid the "approach me" model that requires students to reach out to instructors, as many students have a hard time doing this.

Wood advocates for "intrusive instruction" and argues for "relationships before pedagogy," emphasizing the need to develop a connection with students. Wood argues that instruction is most effective when there is a relationship formed early.

You can see information such as:

• Page views
• Participations
• Submissions (on time, late, missing)
• Grade range

• Express your enthusiasm about the course to students in a welcome letter or welcome video.

• Try to avoid just using negative and threatening language in the syllabus ("Don't do this!") and try to frame your expectations in a positive way ("Successful students in this course...").

Because of this, it's important that online faculty are initiating contact with students throughout a term, especially if a student is struggling.

5. Use group projects and student interaction to create an online community.

• Consider using the Peer Review option in Canvas Assignments to have students review each others' assignments and give each other feedback.

• Using a few exclamation points in communications with students can help communicate energy and warmth.

• Consider using Canvas Collaborations to set up "real world" group projects that allow students to collaborate on Google Docs or Office 365 documents.

4. Intrusive instruction--reach out to students early and often.

You can also see a snapshot of a student's performance and get to their analytics by clicking on his or her name in the Gradebook.

You can even arrange to have a private web conference with a student through one of the web-conferencing options like ConferZoom.

Through the Canvas Gradebook, you can also message all students who haven't submitted an assignment or all students who score below a certain point value or percentage.

6. Use web-conferencing to hold online office hours every week.

To incentivize students to attend, you can make participation in the web conference worth points.

Here is a video tutorial for how to set-up and use ConferZoom for web-conferencing!

Please find additional resources at:

http://www.lasc.edu/students/onlineservices/index.html

5. Use group projects and student interaction to create an online community.

• You can also create Pages that students can edit and work on together.
• By default, only teachers can edit a Canvas Page, but you can choose the setting to allow teachers and students to edit a Page.

However, since not all students will be able to participate synchronously, it's best to record the web conference and give students the option to watch the recording and write a summary for credit.