Communication Tips & Techniques

Whether you choose to engage your students in synchronous (chat or instant messaging) or asynchronous (email, discussion board, bulletin board) communications with you or with other students, the quality of those communications can go a long way toward ensuring student success. This may be as simple as regular emails to query them about how they are progressing and if they need any assistance. Such emails take only a moment or two to write, but may be received by the student as positive interest that can truly motivate or help you to catch problems early, before such problems become insurmoutable challenges for the student.

Keep in mind that students may have already had access to your leadership and expertise, either through your classroom lectures and presentations or through your course materials. Online communications, such as chat sessions or discussion boards, provide the opportunity to assess student understanding and give them the occasion to query you further about concepts that may be challenging to them. Working as a "guide on the side," rather than as a "sage on stage," in this environment will most easily afford your students a voice.

Nevertheless, you do play an important leadership role in framing and moderating communications, especially when conducting group activities among students. An opening question can be one way to both challenge students to apply concepts, extend learning and also give you insights into their understandings. Asking students to define a term or provide a correct response to a question may solicit limited responses. Consider questions that challenge and extend thinking; students often are motivated to begin engaging in challenging and enriching discussions with one another in addition to responding to instructor prompts.

Finally, be clear with students about expectations concerning electronic communication, both in terms of etiquette and participation levels. For more information about Netiquette, review the "Netiquette" section listed in this site.

More information:

• University of Waterloo, Canada - TRACE Teaching Resources Office provides several excellent tip sheets (PDF format) for communicating with students
  
  
  • Effective Communication: Barriers and Strategies (PDF)
    
    
  • Online Discussions: Tips for Educators (PDF)
    
    
  • Collaborative Online Learning: Fostering Effective Discussions (PDF)
    
    
  • Time-savers for Electronic Communication (PDF)
    
    
  • Receiving and Giving Feedback (PDF)
    
    
  • Online Discussions: Tips for Students (PDF)
    
    
• Facilitator Roles and Strategies (EDC's Center for Online Professional Education - COPE) - information for conducting live group communication
  
  
• Effective Online Facilitation (Australian Flexible Learning Framwork Guide - PDF) - a guide and resources for online facilitation of courses and training

Deciding Which Tool to Use

Discussion board or live chat? Email or instant messaging? Here are some tips for deciding which tool will best match your needs.

Choose the Discussion Board if:

• You need to be able to communicate with a group
• You need to be able to communicate without consideration of time/schedule
• You need to keep an archive of all communication that has transpired
• You need to be able to search or sort messages

Choose Live Text Chat or Video Conferencing (Wimba) if:

• You need to be able to communicate with a group
• You need to live interaction, as in a virtual classroom
• You need to keep an archive of all communication that has transpired

Choose Email if:

• You need to communicate more privately with an individual
• You need to be able to communicate without consideration of time/schedule
• You need to distribute or share a file
• You need to keep an archive of all communication that has transpired
• You need to be able to search or sort messages

Choose Instant Message or Video Conferencing (Wimba) if:

• You need to communicate more privately with an individual
• You need to have a live interaction, like virtual office hours
• You need to distribute or share a file (Instant Messaging only - not supported by Wimba)
• Archiving is not an important factor (some systems, such as Wimba, support this, some do not)
• You do not need to search or sort messages

Quick List: Ways to Use Chat and Discussion

A short list of popular ways to implement communication tools:

Discussion Board:

• Question of the Week/Day/Unit: A question to spart discussion about the topic. Avoid use of questions that have a "correct" answer, but rather, choose those that require debate, analysis, or opinion.
  
  
• Frequently Asked Questions: A help or support area where the most popular or the most anticipated questions and answers are presented. This can reduce the amount of redunant communication that an instructor needs to employ; direct students to review this site before requesting assistance.
  
  
• Student-led content areas: Assign a student or group of students to field a particular content area and use the discussion board to post information for others to review.
  
  
• Group project planning: Create individual discussion boards for each group of students to provide them with "private" communication tools for planning and developing group assignments.

Chat or Video Conferencing:

• Virtual Classroom: Regularly scheduled chat sessions can be a replacement for face-to-face class discussions or sessions. Avoid lecturing in this environment; it is the opportunity for the instructor to lead discussion and debate, and gauge student understanding.
  
  
• Virtual Office Hours: Be available during a set time that allows students to come and go with questions.
  
  
• Pre-Exam Study Sessions: Lead a review session for students preparing for a test. Preparing questions to copy and paste into the discussion area in advance will be especially helpful.
  
  
• Group project planning: Create individual chat rooms for each group of students to provide them with "private" communication tools for planning and developing group assignments.