Ten Thousand Little Things: Maximizing Engagement in Online Courses

Brief Abstract

Do you want a quick impactful way to ensure student success? As a key element of student success is faculty presence, this session will provide a formula to achieve high visibility and foster personal connections in your online classes. Participants will learn why and how to personalize their courses.

Extended Abstract

Faculty presence is a key contributor to the learning experience of students in online classes. Student engagement, connection, and retention are linked to increased learning and depend on faculty presence in an online learning environment. You will learn strategies to maximize student learning by increasing your presence in class as students progress in your online course. The relationship between the high visibility of instructors and student success will be emphasized. Additionally, the impact of instructor personalization of courses will be discussed. Personal traits of instructors, such as creativity, adaptability, and kindness contribute to instructor presence and student success. Making your course personal will benefit the students by making connections to the instructor, as well as increasing learning and retention. Also, the promotion of social connections facilitates a sense of community in the class. Furthermore, the instructor will benefit by making teaching more enjoyable and less repetitive, as well as sparking creativity. Ten strategies for personalization and visibility will be shared. Also, a unique equation for ubiquitous student connection in online courses will be revealed.

 As educators, we tend to focus on the student experience. But here, faculty will understand why their personality matters, and why their happiness impacts students.  We need to know that many little things generate feelings and perceptions in an online environment.

Throughout the presentation, participants will be asked to share their strategies for engagement. Examples of personalized objects will be shown

Participants will leave with quick and impactful ways to personalize their online courses, have fun, avoid boredom, ignite creativity, and help improve student experiences at the same time! They will take away an adaptable formula to leverage small actions for increased visibility and connections to students in just ten minutes a day.