Your First Postings: Always Crucial!

Is it primarily freshmen with many who are new to online learning or a group level has students who previously have taken online courses? Is the audience mostly military, civilian, or a combination? Other factors include their ages and whether they have taken other courses in your subject.

The more you know about your class, the more specific can you make this first post.

Here’s where you can erase the divide of only a computer between you and the class—by letting the students immediately feel you are glad to be teaching the course and that they are taking your course, that you are sincerely interested in their learning and improving, and that you are there to help whenever they need you. Also: encourage your students’ suggestions and involvement. This sets a most positive tone and allows for a sense of humanity to come through the monitor—so important in getting and keeping students both engaged and motivated in the course.

These include both the “musts” and your expectations of the course, and are crucial to post at the beginning of the course so the students cannot say they weren’t informed of this or that. Additionally, the students need know they must take the course seriously, there are major repercussions if they don’t, and just because the course does not meet in a brick-and-mortar classroom doesn’t mean they can simply come and go when they choose, as they choose. This is your “I’m the boss” section of the post.

Called reality-based education, it reminds the students that the course has importance beyond a grade, beyond X number of weeks. By explaining to students the subject’s importance to them beyond the “I must take this course” mindset you are, yet again, offering a reason for their ownership of the course, and thus bringing about more involvement on the students’ part.

These tips can come from your past experience in teaching the course; items you look for in assignment submissions; insight on what their overall contributions in discussions, teamwork, chat, and other such areas should be; what they shouldn’t do—these and other like items help improve the overall quality of each student’s class involvement AND contribute to your humanization and I’m-really-interested-in-helping-you image.

While this should be mentioned at the beginning of your post it should also be restated at least two more times, including at the end. Again, this shows your sincere involvement in the course and concern for your students.

When available, the use of color, bolding, italics, et cetera, can highlight what you deem especially important, give a sense of personality and warmth to your words, and break up the print so it’s easier to digest. Also, don’t hesitate to use subheads, a word or two in caps to introduce a section, and sentence fragments to emphasize.

This is the very last part of your first post that students will read, so restate the positives in your opening few lines; use an exclamation point here and there to show excitement; and let them know you are really looking forward to the course, their involvement, and—very important—their overall improvement.

Proofread and edit, proofread and edit: once you send out your first post you can’t recall it, so be sure it says what you meant to say, that it’s well written, and that you proofread it. You do, indeed, only get one chance to make a first impression!

Students want to improve, yet too often instructors simply indicate that something in an assignment is incorrect without giving specifics; this does not help the student. By establishing an initial reputation as one who gives detailed feedback—most comments will consist of indicating something in the assignment is incorrect, why it is incorrect, and how to get it right—the students will know yours is a class where they can learn, and this starts the road to a strong student-instructor rapport.

We want students to improve, of course, and the ones who do well and are ener-getic coming in will continually give what is expected—and beyond. But there are also the students who do poorly on their first assignment, and while your comments will point this out it’s also crucial that these students—of course, all students—receive one or two positive comments on their assignment. This motivation goes a long way in keeping stu-dents enthused and helps to build their confidence from the beginning of the course.

Many students don’t consider a course beyond its X amount of weeks and a final grade, yet by initially reminding students of how the course subject relates to the professional world you immediately make the course more important. And this can be done not only through the general subject being taught but also for the specifics of each assignment.

This is where you have the opportunity to personalize your feedback; it lets the students know you are not merely checking off a list, but rather focusing on each student, and his or her needs. And by including a positive and energetic sentence or two you establish yourself as one who is a cheerleader for the students’ success, always crucial in keeping students engaged in the course.

When students see you are available to help—indeed, you want to help—with any questions or confusion they have on assignments your role becomes that of a 3D course instructor. For instead of the oneway conversation of you giving feedback to the students now you are inviting twoway conversation on their assignment submission and your feedback. This is but another way of letting the students know, early on, “Hey, I’m interested in helping you improve!”

This is akin to one of those TV commercials with the famous line, “But wait— there’s more!” Yes, students expect feedback from you, and giving detailed feedback will be quite nice. But at the end of your overall/summary comment paste a list of websites that offer additional infor-mation relating to the course subject and/ or the assignment. This “resource bank” goes a long way in showing students they can count on you to give them everything they need to do well in the course. And always remind them of your comments’ and the webliography’s value beyond the course.

By giving students detailed feedback, an overall summary comment, and a webliography you are also giving them much text—and this can begin to run into one another if you don’t use different-sized fonts, underlining, and—especially important—highlighting for the positive and especially important material. By doing this you’ll immediately draw the students’ attention to the “high points” of your com-ments, while establishing colors for which they will look with future assignments.

Although this is not part of your feedback it does go a long way in making sure you have more positive feedback on the students’ first submission. One way students often lose points on an assignment is by leaving out one or two items that are required for the assignment. A great way to help students prevent this, show the students you are truly there to help them, and start students off with a positive feel about the course is posting a sheet that lists all requirements for the first assignment, in bullet form, indicating that as the students complete an item it can be highlighted as having been completed. You are letting students know you are trying to do everything possible to help them succeed!

You are the umbilical cord that connects the students to their course, and the more life you pump through that connection the more students will want to be involved in the course. So, by posting early in a discussion thread—ideally, prior to the thread beginning, and then again on the first day the thread is open—the students see you are actively in the course, you are part of the course, and can be counted on to give suggestions and insights in discussion. Certainly, you do not want to overtake discussion—it is, after all, the students’ discussion—but seeing you involved in discussion, with a reminder or two about the importance of the discussion thread, will prove quite meaningful.

As the discussion goes on it will be important to post to specific students—this gives your postings a personalized touch and allows you to offer motivation to each student on a name basis. But the first couple of postings should be to the whole of the class—this way, the class knows what you are saying in discussion is for all and you are interested in all doing well in discussion.

This is something that should be done throughout the course, but in each first posting opportunity this needs be mentioned to get students used to thinking about your course as more than a brief time with you for a grade. Thus, in your first and second post in the discussion remind students of how the thread’s topic ties into the professional world—and always ask students to share any experiences in their professional lives that tie into the thread’s topic: this immediately gives them more ownership in the course, which results in enthusiasm for learning the material.

While this is a given throughout the course, if established in the first and second posting the students will see you are doing more than a “Ho-hum, I gotta post, so here it is” posting. If students know you really enjoy learning from discussion posting it’s another push to get your students involved. And remind them: each time they respond to a classmate’s posting it takes the course deeper and wider, which makes for a richer learning experience.

Proper netiquette is always important, but the heat of a discussion topic can make students post with emotion first—and this can hurt or upset other students. To stem this do remind them to be courteous; to disagree, if they choose, but in a professional manner; and to read over their posts before hitting “submit.” Also, tell students how valuable their life experiences are to the course as they relate to the thread topics—overall, students enjoy talking about their worlds, and when they tie it in to the topic of the thread, even the course subject, the students are contributing to that reality-based education that takes the course out of the school and into the real world.

REMEMBER: The first whiff of food, the first interaction with a waiter, and the first reaction to the ambience in a restaurant set our anticipation for what to expect—and it is the responsibility of the restaurant’s owner to make all positive; if not, the customer will have a less than positive experience, and probably not return.