The concept of class time is very different in asynchronous instruction. You’re probably used to thinking of teaching in 50 to 90-minute chunks, planning each session in detail on what you want your students to learn for the day. But, with asynchronous teaching, start thinking of your class as something that happens over the course of a week. Begin by thinking of activities your students can perform that align with your course goals and learning outcomes.
Want to help your students be more successful during this COVID-19? In this article of the Chronicle of Higher Education by Flower Darby, she discusses 5 low-tech examples of how to use asynchronous techniques to improve your online teaching. There is a large amount of creditable and reliable information out there – YouTube, TED Talks, articles, professional journals – that you can incorporate into your course without any heavy lifting.
If your finding yourself in endless one-on-one zoom sessions and emails answering individual questions, you’re to be congratulated, but it’s not sustainable – or healthy. Instead, aim for lots of posts using your LMS and communicating one-to-many. Each week provide your summary of the course materials and make them available on a specific day of the week, so your students know when its coming.
Lastly, hold your students accountable. We know all our students don’t do the required readings as we’d like them too, but, when you incorporate short pop quizzes worth points, students become more engaged.
Check out the 5 Tips. Contact lit@wit.edu for a course consult.