COVID-19 made widespread virtual teaching and learning necessary on a far larger scale than expected, and much, much sooner. Colleges and universities struggled to end their Spring 2020 semesters in a way that would provide meaningful learning experiences and fair grading practices.
Many colleges continued to offer students the choice to attend virtually or in person. Some instructors pivoted to virtual teaching easily, but many were not ready, and students and instructors both suffered from the lack of continuity.
With the 2020-2021 school year behind us, instructors have learned a lot, and best practices are popping up. In this post, we’ll discuss three tips to help you improve your virtual teaching skills, so you can keep your students engaged and learning. The three tips include:
- Make all expectations clear.
- Take time to build relationships with students (and take student feedback seriously).
- Respond to students professionally, whether they’ve earned it or not.
1. Make All Expectations Clear
Clear expectations help foster a sense of well-being and a desire to do well. This is true for both individuals and teams. Most of the data we have to support this idea comes from employment studies.
According to Effectory.com, “role clarity is the degree to which employees have a clear understanding of their tasks, responsibilities and processes at work.” And role clarity in work is similar to role clarity in an educational setting.
Data shows that employees who say they have high role clarity are 53% more efficient and 27% more effective at work than employees who don’t quite understand their role. We believe that clarity would increase efficiency and effectiveness in classrooms as well.
Clearly, by the time students are enrolled in higher education, they have a good understanding of the role of “student”. But in each new class, with each new teacher, students have to relearn what it means to be a student again and again.
You can help provide clarity in several ways:
- Organize your class well.
- Stick to the same basic format for the duration of the class.
- Make all assignments and resources easy to find.
- Make your grading system as simple as possible.
- Provide clear instructions and due dates.
In a virtual classroom, you’ll have learners of varying needs as you have in an in-person classroom. Catering to every individual is impossible, but providing the same information in multiple formats can help at least cater to students’ various learning styles.
Some students want to see numbered lists. Some want outlines. Others want a visual representation such as a calendar. It’s more work for you upfront to provide information in multiple formats. Yet, as long as the information is consistent, providing it in multiple formats will save you time and frustration in the long run.
While it may seem that sticking to the same basic format for the duration of the class will cause boredom and lack of engagement, variation in topics can more than make up for a lack of variation in format.
2. Take Time to Build Relationships With Students
Relationship skills can be learned and developed at any point in a person’s life. In other words, if you haven’t been a “people person” for the first several decades of your life, all hope is not lost. You can always improve.
Some of the best insights on relationship development come from the world of healthcare. In 2012, Koloroutis and Trout, a nurse and a psychologist, wrote a book called “See Me as a Person”, which defined the four practices that form and nurture relationships.
- Attuning: Deliberately tuning in to what another person is saying or doing
- Wondering: Being genuinely curious about another person
- Following: Allowing yourself to be informed and guided by what you’re observing from another person
- Holding: Making yourself a safe and nurturing person for others to be around
Focusing on even one of these practices will improve your relationships with all of your students. It can be difficult for anyone, including instructors, to feel fully seen and heard in virtual settings. Taking on any of these practices will help everyone involved to feel more seen, heard, and held.
Provide Timely Feedback
Providing students with timely feedback also helps them feel seen, heard, and held. Even for students who are used to screen-based communication, submitting an assignment and not hearing anything back can feel like shouting into a black hole. It can be a lot to keep up with, but quick responses, even if brief, can mean a lot to students.
Take Student Feedback Seriously (but With a Grain of Salt)
This is where your obligation for self-care meets your obligation to provide a positive experience for your students. Even the best instructors get student feedback that’s hard to accept.
In these instances, pausing to reflect before responding is important. Chances are good that whatever unkind sentiment the student’s communication seems to convey, it wasn’t meant to be as unkind as it appears.
The reasons for negative student feedback are highly varied. If you can keep from taking that feedback personally, you may even be able to find something useful in what’s being said.
3. Keep All Interactions With Students Respectful, Even if Students Haven’t Been Respectful to You
There are many reasons why this can be a very hard suggestion to follow. On message boards across the country, virtual instructors are rightly complaining about disrespectful communications from their students.
They often point to a sense of entitlement from their students, sometimes even labeling them as self-centered and shallow. Yet, engaging with them at that same level would be a threat not only to your relationship with those students but to your own professionalism.
It’s not always the most helpful course of action to give someone what they have coming. If you receive negative feedback or aggressive communication from a student, take a breath and ask yourself a few questions before responding.
- What’s really going on with this person?
- Is there a grain of truth hiding in this message?
- Is there a way for me to provide some coaching for this person rather than responding in a way that simply matches the tone of what the person wrote?
We’re not suggesting you give the person free rein to be disrespectful. And of course, anything that can be construed as a threat must be addressed appropriately. We’re merely suggesting that in virtual relationships—particularly with people who are not skilled in written communications— things are easily misunderstood.
In some cases, you may find it helpful to offer the student a “do-over.” You could reply with a request that the student look again at what they wrote and see if there is a way they can express themselves with clarity and professionalism. Sometimes an invitation is all it takes to turn a moment around.
What You Can Do Today
Working on your relational competence begins with the simple realization that developing a higher level of relational competence would be a gift to yourself and everyone in your life. Some resources to improve your relational competence include all the following:
- Any of the work of the Arbinger Institute.
- Books and courses of study such as The Four Agreements, Crucial Conversations, Non-Violent Communication, and See Me as a Person.
- Any content that discusses what authors Eisler and Potter have termed the Partnership Paradigm.
While all of these resources will be helpful, it’s your level of commitment to improving your relational competence that will make the biggest difference.
As See Me as a Person states, it is impossible to wonder and judge at the same time. Students will give you countless opportunities to judge them. Decide to wonder first, and see how your experience changes.
Bonus Tip: Improve How You Deliver Course Materials With Lumen Learning
At Lumen Learning, we believe that when learning is a joy, teaching is a joy. Our tools, including in-depth courses and virtual courseware, can help you improve how you deliver educational materials to your students.
To learn more, fill out our request a demo form. A member of our team will get back to you quickly to review the course materials in your LMS and decide if you’d like to use them in your classes.