 So, some strategies to overcome some of the challenges to teaching learning include really a capacity building within institutions like universities. Oftentimes teaching can be a very kind of isolating experience and things that happen in the classroom don't kind of get shared outside the classroom and a great advantage and it can also be a scary part of online teaching is that what's being done is a little bit more exposed and so that enables you to potentially show a colleague a module that you've developed ahead of time versus requiring that individual to come in and see you teaching in your class and so there's opportunities there to share something and to get feedback on it. We may have training and experience in teaching and learning pedagogy for face to face or lecture in different formats but not so much online and that's where institutional resources, individuals who have more training in these more recent pedagogical tools where they come in very handy so you do get consultation and advice on course design that's really quite different than your traditional face to face class. Another way for addressing challenges is to look and try and inform what you're doing in the classroom with what's worked well what are best practices. I had to use different rapport building strategies in the online environment so I developed a lot of get acquainted activities which I actually have taken from workshop ice breakers that I didn't think would work necessarily in a face to face class but they work really well online surprisingly so I do a lot of ice breaker stuff just to get acquainted and I do some disclosures that are that they're willing to make that I build on later. I like to be recursive so that if they reveal early I come back to it later and pull it forward and connect it to the subject matter that has helped with some of the community building and some of those challenges. That challenge of engaging students then turns into an opportunity because in an online environment for example setting up a kind of a discussion form of some sort you can make sure that everyone participates because they're you know graded on it or something and you can you can create a number of engagement situations. In the early going I have to be engaging with them a lot the first two or three or four the first month of class the engagement is almost non-stop so I mean anyone who thinks you just load it up there and let it go and it'll run itself I have found out no unless it's a it's a very unless it's the type of course that just requires individual sort of participation in a series of projects but the first month I'm heavily involved engaging with them I have office hours that are synchronous so that they can get a bit of a synchronous feel I do podcasts so they can hear my voice. We do avatars we do proverbs we sort of disclose things about ourselves where we're from that kind of thing so I try to do the those types of things early in the course to sort of build rapport because then I find it unfolds better in the second and third month if they've got a feel for each other and not just the people in the class who they find some resonances with or it's not just between me and it's not like it's 30 students having individual relationships with me. One of the strategies for getting students to engage in virtual discussions with the teaching team are online chat sessions especially if there's a reward for them and having TAs more involved in your classroom activities I think that's an important way to to deal with it. I offer students a bonus point if they come to my office hours or if we arrange a Skype or FaceTime session and in doing that I'm trying to communicate to the students that getting to know them even a little bit is really important for me. To overcome challenges in an online environment really consists of ensuring the students that you are there even though they may not be able to see you at all times you need to assure them that you are there you're available if they want to face-to-face meeting that's just fine but for the majority of students who will not come to office hours and prefer to communicate by electronic means that means that you have to be available by electronic means and typically that means that you need to be available after class time so in the evenings and on weekends. I've tried doing an intro video so you talk you know talk to them about who I am so they get a sense because it's also weird for them and disorienting for them for all they know I'm a username on the system they don't really know me they can look me up I suppose but I find it's easier to come across in your or the video help to communicate kind of who I am and what I think about the course and what I'm trying to do. Some strategies for overcoming online challenges I think one of the big ones is that because students have to be able to manage their time and be very self-directed and motivated you have to try and give them as many signposts along the way to keep them informed as to what their progress is in the course you have to be extremely organized so that they know exactly what's expected of them each week for every component of the course and you have to communicate that extremely clearly to them in different ways in different parts of the material through the syllabus and online through the discussion board announcements as many different ways as you can to try and make it extremely clear to them where are they now where are they supposed to be where are they going next.