Emphasis Time
Student Time Commitment
It is very important for students to know how much time you expect them to commit to your course. Sometimes students have a false sense of security in online courses and what is an "easy A" because they don't have to attend a class in a face to face environment. Typically, online courses require as much or sometimes more of a time committment than regular campus courses.
Instructors should communicate clear instructions to the students on the amount of time is needed to complete the coursework in their course. Students should understand that checking Announcements, reading discussion messages in addition to assigned texts, taking exams and writing their own discussion messages require a committment of time and discipline to keep current with their course work load on an everyday basis.
Emphasizing Deadlines
As instructors, it is beneficial to your students to add deadlines for completing major projects, assignments, discussions and exams. This will help keep your students on track. By using the date features in the LMS, the due dates are shown on a calendar for the students to help them keep on track in your course. Helping your students keep on track in your course, you can post to announcements, send emails, use text messaging to post reminders of upcoming events.
This is not to imply that online students aren't capable of maintaining their own schedules for a college-level course. With all the extra time that they will be spending on day-to-day discussion and course activities, it's sometimes easy to lose track of the amount of time they still have remaining before a larger-scale project or paper is due. Giving your students these reminders will build upon the deadlines you've already given them in the course schedule or syllabus. Reminders will also help maintain the line of communication between you and the students, so they get the added "reminder" of your presence in the course as the instructor.
Many times we focus on adding information at the beginning of our modules. However, using a summary or checklist at the end of a module is a great tool to help your students ensure they have completed their work related to the module lessons. Below is a text box of a sample checklist.
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Have I completed Module 3?
To be sure you have completed all the assignments for Module 3 and are ready to move on to Module 4, please check that you have accomplished all of the following:
1. Read Chapter 5 from textbook 2. Posted to the Reflection and responded to two other students in the forum 3. Completed and uploaded your Module 3 Assignment 4. Completed Module 3 Quiz
Have you completed all four of these? Great! You are ready to begin Module 4 |