Out Sick Messages

This Tuesday, I was under the weather and didn't get my weekly News item up as scheduled.  While I got the message up on Wednesday, and didn't hear any complaints, I probably should have at least posted a quick note of the reason for the delay.  The same procedure probably should be done when traveling or dealing with other issues which take us away.

Students like to know you are in the class and when something isn't following the plan, they tend to get nervous. A quick little note letting them know why may well save an issue later.

The Most Important Thing

The most important thing any online instructor can do is login and check classes.  For me, this is daily.  Yes, seven days a week.  Over the course of the semester, there are days I don't get it done, but they are extremely rare.  So, I'm sure you are asking two questions; why and how?

Let's start with the why.  Your students want you to be in the class.  They don't want to feel like they are alone.  If they see you posting in your class daily, they will learn they can ask questions and get answers in a timely manner.  This will give them confidence in the class and in turn the material.  Retention and student success numbers show, active instructors equal successful classes.

The other side of this coin is how.  I know what many of you are thinking, "I have a life. I can't do this every day."  I say you can.  On weekends, do two things; check email and discussions once per day.  That's it.  No more.  While I try to reply to every email, my posts per day go down dramatically on the weekend.  One or two discussion replies each day to let the class know I'm there and that's it.  For my 3 CCCOnline classes, this rarely takes more than about 30 minutes per day.  That's an hour each weekend.  Experience has taught me, if I spend an hour each weekend in the class, I save at least twice that much on Monday picking up the pieces.