Communication is key

Fostering communication among students is important because it allows you to reproduce any collaboration you build into your course, and maintains a sense of community that can help keep students motivated to participate and learn. It helps if you already had some sort of student-to-student online activity (for example, ELearning or TEAMS) since students will be used to both the process and the tool.

Actionable Items

• Use asynchronous tools when possible:
  Use asynchronous tools like MyEMCC ELearning Discussions or email to allow students to participate on their own schedules. In addition, bandwidth requirements for discussion boards are far lower than for live video tools.
• Link to clear goals and outcomes:
  Make sure there are clear purposes and outcomes for any student-to-student interaction. How does this activity help them meet course outcomes or prepare for other assignments?
• Build in simple accountability:
  Find ways to make sure students are accountable for the work they do in any online discussions or collaborations. Assigning points for online discussion posts can be tedious, so some instructors ask for reflective statements where students detail their contributions and reflect on what they learned from the conversation.
• Balance newness and need:
  As with any changed activities, you will need to balance the needs and benefits of online collaboration with the additional effort such collaboration will require on everyone else's part. Learning new technologies and procedures might be counterproductive, particularly in the short term, unless there is clear benefit.