Virtually Autumn: Onboarding Students

In the previous post, I introduced the general idea of striving to earn student buy-in to the course design by describing how and why I designed your class the way I did. In the post before that one, on additions to the syllabus for a virtual course, I provided resources for students to obtain technical support. Here, I'll combine these two topics and give more details on how I onboard students to my class.

Course Design

I like to explain to students

1. how my approach to teaching is designed to help them succeed in class
2. how the class will help them beyond the classroom
3. how their efforts will develop their scientific skills

I discuss these points on the first day of class, and I also include a written version as the introduction to the course manual. You can view a PDF of that introduction here, and I'll summarize the main points below.

For my genetics class (starting on the third page of the PDF file),

1. I introduce the blended learning ("flipped classroom") design, suggesting that it maximizes the use of precious student-instructor interaction time. I explain why group work is important, including opportunities to get feedback on comprehension not just from me but from peers, and that having conversations can foster an environment where question-asking can become less scary.
2. I provide evidence that employers prefer candidates who can adapt, learn, and think critically, and that blended learning is ideal (compared to traditional lecturing) both to help students practice those skills and also to demonstrate those skills to me, as an evaluator who will definitely be assigning a letter grade and perhaps also providing a recommendation letter in the future
3. I explain that a relevant scientific organization (the American Association for the Advancement of Science) has produced a policy document describing core knowledge and skills that undergraduate scientists should develop. I then describe how the class has been designed to facilitate that process of knowledge and skill development.

These are approaches you might take to help students understand (and maybe even appreciate!) the deliberate structure you've created for your course. Help them answer how your course design helps them:

1. better achieve the learning objectives?
2. obtain content and develop skills that are valuable beyond the classroom in "the real world?"
3. attain or exceed disciplinary standards and expectations?

Technology Practice

Virtual instruction necessarily involves technology, and we should not assume that all of our students have all of the skills they will need to accomplish the tasks we envision. In my teaching experience, I've primarily had to focus on helping students learn to use software. My classes tend not to involve new hardware technologies like clicker systems, which I might have to spend time showing students how to use. Instead, I've found that I do need to provide instruction, for example, on various aspects of using the course learning management system.

You should not expect to be able to anticipate every possible student need, but as I've suggested before, it is worth spending the time thinking of common training needs. You've either encountered them in the past, or you can guess at what software processes/workflows some students might not be familiar with.

There are many ways to help onboard students to the technology for your course. For example, you can provide written or video tutorials. I do like to create my own brief walkthrough videos, like this one on how to use software to measure the length of a worm or how to perform the chi-square test in Google Sheets. In an upcoming post, I'll provide more resources on how to make these sorts of videos.

However, we know that is better to do something than only to watch a walkthrough video of somebody else doing that thing. This is why I highly encourage building time into the first days of class for the students to have purposeful practice. For the software and skills I plan for students to regularly use, I create low-stakes exercises to help them become familiar with the required workflows. This way, they can improve their efficiency and be more comfortable before you might require them to do the same in a more stressful situation, like during an exam.

Other examples of software and skills might include:

• how to create a Google Sheet, perform calculations in it, and share it with me so that I can provide feedback
• how to use an online DNA analysis tool to perform a BLAST query
• how to use Socrative to take in-class quizzes

Why is the practice meant to be purposeful? I find that students are more likely to conduct a task, especially a practice one, if there is some benefit to them. Aside from explaining that the inherent benefit is to practice, it helps if the practice exercise is more than: create a Google Doc, type your name in the document, and share it with me. Since this process happens at the start of the term, I might add the instruction to write me a paragraph or less summarizing what they already know about DNA and how they think that the field of genetics might be relevant to their lives. This is useful for me to know as the instructor, and it can help students start to realize how the class topic might be engaging.

Likewise, the reason that purposeful practice is low-stakes, and not no-stakes, is to provide that little additional incentive (maybe one or two points) to complete the workflow. Of course, with the concept of flexibility in mind, it is perfectly reasonable to make this a no-stakes assignment, to have a "soft" deadline, and to allow multiple attempts at completing the process before perfecting it.

Consider deliberately designing time in your class to onboard students to your course design and to common digital workflows using purposeful practice. Ideally, these will decrease stress (both to you and to students!) and improve student retention and productivity in online classes. Of course, the same practices are just as valid in face-to-face classes as well. I think we'll continue to find that good teaching is good teaching, whether online or not!