Help Fully Online Learners Complete Non-Graded Course Work

Explain your expectations early about the shared responsibility for learning in the course. Here is an example.

Dear class: I recognize that you have many personal and professional responsibilities that put demands on your time. But, when you dedicate at least 3 hours each week, you will be able to complete all of the supported learning, and space out your practice, in this course. Non-graded activities in this course can help you to practice with what you’ve learned and receive feedback on your learning before assignments are due. I will be available during drop-in hours each week to answer your questions as you proceed through the lesson. 

Emphasize time management. Repeat to students that they should be booking the requisite course hours in their schedules. Share asynchronous learning about how to be successful while learning online tips from the Student Success online video series. Encourage students to use a day planner, such as Student Portal calendar, to aid time management.

Encourage working ahead – Ask students to review their personal calendars, noting dates or times of the week are particularly busy for them. Encourage students to plan to work ahead in the asynchronous content to anticipate these busy times.  

Explain the consequences – Low stakes learning activities are usually the first activities to be skipped. If you explain the consequences of skipping the activities, you can remind students the import of learning with no-stakes practice.

Make the course shell a place students want to be. Encourage students to log into eConestoga often by regularly providing interesting professional stories, sharing professional resources, and discussing current events, as well as giving timely, personalized comments on their submitted work.  

Go first. In collaborative activities, such as the discussion forum, model what a contribution can look like. Exemplars can give students a sense of what you expect and help them to work through their shyness and contribute as well.

Make contributing simple. Give clear instructions and provide links directly to the activity. Asynchronous activities that are easy to to complete and/or anonymous may receive more responses.

Praise responses, contributions, and completions. Show that you are actively monitoring the activity by praising those who have contributed or completed the activity. Send a private message and/or send a group message to share your appreciation and summarize how their contributions furthered learning.

Reach out to those not participating. Remind students of the benefits of readings and practice activities for success in the course. Suggest a meeting to discuss ungraded course work, and consider referring students to a Success Advisor if they do not reply. 

Ask for feedback. Invite students to share their experiences with with the ungraded course activities. Act on their suggestions where possible, and students know that you are listening to and appreciate their ideas. 

Non-Graded Activities in Fully Asynchronous Courses

Encourage students to enable email notifications. If you notice that students are responding to your emails but not to announcements, show students how to adjust their “notification” settings so that eConestoga announcements will go to email. See this video Setting Up Notifications in D2L [3:18] 

Provide asynchronous work award badges. Using release conditions, create and share badges for learner accomplishments, such as those who complete ungraded activities. See this page on How to Create Badges in D2L.  

Send Intelligent Agent (or manual) emails when students complete an entire section of their work, recognizing their effort. See an example below.

Dear Janine: My records indicate that you have been visiting our XXX course shell regularly and keeping up with the content each week. You have also completed X practice quizzes. This message is simply to recognize the consistent effort that you are putting into the course. Keep up the good work! 

Send regular Announcements and emails. If you send regular announcements and emails (at the beginning, middle, and end of the week), you help give reminders to keep students on track.

Participate actively. Be an active part of the discussion or activity. Provide a de-brief on the activity. Thank those who participated.

Start a “take-home” activity in class. Help students get started with an ungraded asynchronous reading, forum discussion, or practice test by starting it together in class as a large group or in pairs. Then, once they have seen the resource, and you have explained its value for their learning, invite students to finish on their own during asynchronous class time.  

Provide a slides that describes the flow. An agenda for a week or unit can help describe to students what is being done during what mode of activity.

Create a preparation for class checklist or a knowledge check poll or survey before the next class. Use this strategy to encourage activity completion before class. Note that you will take up responses in class.

Be selective about non-graded activities. Students are expected to complete a set number of hours of supported asynchronous course work. Review how much ungraded course work you expect students to complete–would they be able to complete all activities in the scheduled time frame? Where possible, distinguish supported asynchronous course work from optional/additional readings and activities.  

Keep activities short and visual. When activities are short and visually engaging, students will be more likely to complete them.

Chunk content by page. Rather than put all asynchronous lesson content on one page, chunk the lesson with multiple pages by topics or activity. When content is chunked meaningfully, your course design makes it easier to absorb and retain information (Clark & Mayer, 2016). 

Describe the value. Students will be more likely to engage in your activity if you describe the value of the activity for students. Relate the practice back to graded assignments or go personal/professional goals.

Ask students to share back. Create a conversation with students about ungraded asynchronous content by asking students to share their ideas and opinions. There are several student share back tools, including the discussion forum, surveys, embedded polls, and private emails. 

Use progress indicators. Indicate how far students have progressed through the ungraded asynchronous content. This can be done with self-checks at key points to confirm learning, or a simple message of congratulations when students have reached a certain point in the lesson. See these eLearning progress bars as some visual examples.