 When you're communicating with students online versus in person In person it's easy to check for visual cues and and really what that a lot of that about is about is checking for understanding and Getting a sense of the pace and the depth that you're using in terms of how you're communicating a particular idea and When it's online that checking for understanding is being done often in an asynchronous way say it's a discussion board So I have to answer someone's question and almost always I'll finish by saying I hope that clears it up for you, but if you have a follow-up question, please feel free I really want to encourage them to feel free to to follow up So that's a way of trying to mitigate that idea that I can't Check for understanding just by looking at their their eyes lighting up if they understand something or something like that Or even if it's in a online office hours where I'm using a webinar and video Is that often what will happen is that I'm they can see and hear me through audio and video But they're typing questions into a chat window, and so I will try to make sure to Frequently stop and ask did that answer your question and do that before I move on to the next question in the feed Is the two to keep checking for understanding as frequently as possible and really make them feel as much as I can that it's a Dialogue and that I'm not just broadcasting an answer and moving on to the next one But that they have that opportunity to have a rapport and to to follow up and make sure that it's clear for them we know And I certainly know that When teaching online and truthfully even teaching face-to-face I Like to think that I'm Oriented and student student centered myself in terms of how I communicate with students. I set expectations And I think expectations whether you're teaching face-to-face a small section or a large section or if you're teaching online setting students expectations is key and so It's very easy in whatever medium to Get sucked into an environment where you feel that you always have to be on and that the only thing that you are while you're Teaching is a teacher and nothing else and you're you're working to the demands of your students Well, if you're clear in your expectations That's that's a key role. That's a that's a first step The second step is to think about where there might be issues in terms of where there might be a lot of volume of communications and that that really is about clarity and transparency and teaching and If you're clear in your instructions if you're clear in terms of the design or what you want your learners to learn your learning outcomes And you're open about that and you share that and you provide that information that starts to Potentially reduce a lot of the anxiety and anxiety often I find generates interaction what I would say Inefficient in interactions What's the marking scheme? I'm not clear about what I what's expected me for this assignment Or what do I have to do to get an A? You have to adjust your communication style a little bit they tend to be a Lot of the comments come via email or or the discussion boards and as a result they're very informal casual almost and It'd be hard to imagine them asking in the same thing if they were talking to you face-to-face But through this communication through the course management system or through email or they come across as casual Adapter communication to their Level I found that to be more successful You know being a little more casual a little more like yeah, you know say yeah instead of Really it's it's simple things, but honestly they respond so much better when they feel like they're talking to a person and not this You know kind of unreachable unreachable professional that you know as an expert and and they're You come across as almost bothered by their question if you're too formal I think you have to first I think is a In this online situation you have to provide students with as many ways to communicate with you as possible the biggest challenge for me is Getting students to understand that it's better for us to speak verbally be it on the phone, and I don't mind phoning students or Be it face-to-face when discussing essay Ideas or you know students will email me say you know I thought I might do an essay on Hitler's dog. Is that okay? Well, you can't you can't discuss that in an email message. You know that's a conversation You need to have a concert. Well, why would you want to talk about Hitler's dog? And of course I let's discuss this You know why you were thinking about that? Have you thought of this? You know that's a conversation And that's a conversation that works much better verbally Then it does as an email exchange And I tell students again and again, you know a two-sentence message to me about here's an idea I have about my essay. Can you tell me if this is good or not? isn't going to isn't going to work and So I always solve respond But I'll say my response will usually be you have my phone number call me or set up a time for me to call you And let's let's talk about this And it's also why you know in the course I do preparatory work in the course where they have to provide a Kind of an outline of what they might want to write about in their essay so that you know we can they can give me at At least more information that can then be responded to I think it's important for students to have the chance to talk to their professors or teaching assistants in real time because Having talked to a number of students one of the challenges of online courses is That they never get to meet you and you don't have a chance for a live response to any kind of discussion So whether it's online office hours or chat sessions or or virtual TA groups It's a way to really develop your understanding of the material in a more dynamic fashion And it allows the teaching team to be able to actually get to know their students more