Do you use an LMS? How do you support students with learning the routines and key features of an online classroom? This session will share practical and doable ways to onboard students to your classroom.
Using a learning management system (LMS) and teaching online in some capacity are proliferating higher education. Designing and delivering effective online instruction is complicated. Once the course is designed, a challenge is to ensure that learners are able to navigate the course design to support their engagement. Moore’s (1997) transactional distance theory notes a perceived “psychological and communication space” in online learning environments which may result in students minimally engaging.
Khan et al. (2017) found engaging students in an online learning environment is challenging. Often, students must interpret the course requirements, expectations, schedule, and technology aspects of an LMS by themselves. Onboarding instruction aims to provide an interactive pathway for students to navigate and engage during their online learning journey with instructor support.
This presentation will share findings from a Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) research project. It examines a course for adult learners that serves as the entry point for a fully online, asynchronous graduate degree program. The purpose of this research is to understand how onboarding instruction may influence, if at all, students’ confidence in navigating the virtual classroom.
During this lightning session, an overview of onboarding instruction and a virtual tour with practical examples from an online classroom will be shared along with the use of a 3-2-1 graphic organizer which allows you an opportunity to reflect on your own instructional practice while thinking about how you may apply your learning to your context.