We discussed, in Lab 2, the importance of reaching out to students who have not accessed the course or logged into Canvas within the first week of class. However, checking in and communicating with students who are not turning in work and/or are not active in Canvas is important throughout the whole semester.

Please watch this 47 second video where our own Dr. Kim Vose discusses how she reaches out to students. As you listen, think about what strategies you are interested in adopting:

Please explore the tabs below before clicking 'NEXT'!

What
How
Figuring Out Who
See an Example

What the Research Says:

Reaching out individually to students who are not turning in work or who are not engaging with the course is an important aspect of facilitating an online course. One great use of the Inbox in Canvas is to send direct emails to students. Meeting students with empathy and compassion is important to garnering effective communication.

This tactic can be as simple as sending students "nudges." Nudges are personalized text messages or emails to students to help remind them or encourage their success and make better decisions. These can also be accomplished by one-on-one meetings face-to-face or in videoconferences or phone calls.

After an exam, for example, you might try sending tailored individualized messages to students who struggled (or else hold videoconferences) and discuss study strategies and how to use the learning goals more effectively to target their studying. In a study of this technique, both students who had an in-person meeting with the instructor and those who only received an email improved their performance on the following exam:

To read the study, click on the image below:

These sorts of personalized messages to students (regardless of how they are performing in your class) help close the equity gaps we see for lower-income students and their retention rates. You can find more information about this under "Examples & Templates."

How

The Canvas guides below explain how to use the Inbox as an instructor and how to view student activity in Canvas. The next tab, "Figuring Out Who," will go into more detail about Course Analytics.

Inbox

Student Activity

How to view student course access in Canvas

Figuring Out Who

After the first week of a course, it’s smart to check in with students who have not logged in to Canvas at all and/or have not completed the first week’s assignments. The first week is a critical time to check that students understand the course structure and how to access all of the materials, activities, and how to communicate with you.

Contacting students individually is also great to do if you see a sudden drop off in participation or if they are not responding to the feedback and comments in the SpeedGrader.

Of course, it's also great to contact students who are not yet "missing," but who you see turning in lower quality work or are not meeting the course expectations.

You can see students' activity in Canvas by looking at your Course Analytics. The New Analytics Canvas Guide shows you what you can learn/view within New Analytics for a particular student. There is also a TLi Knowledge Base resource for how to activate New Analytics. There is also a great overview on communication from our own Megan Alstot's TLi blog post on "Taking Stock" that includes information on New Analytics as well as other course communication tips.

To explore communicating with missing students even further, please read the blog and article below:

You can also read our own Dr. Vose's TLi blog post on being a "Warm Demander."
The New York Times article about "Helping the Poor in Education: The Power of a Simple Nudge"

See an Example

For more detailed information and other examples/tools, you may be interested in exploring the following other THRIVE opportunities:

Asynchronous Interaction & Communication Enrichment
Equity in Action Enrichment
Canvas Webinar

This is a great example of modeling empathy to students in a quick video that could be included in an announcement. This example is from Denise Maduli-Williams! Denise has her online students participate in asynchronous conversations using a tool called VoiceThread . VoiceThread is a web-based tool that gives students the choice to comment in text, voice, or video (you can learn more about this in the Enrichments Course). Denise knows that she needs to shepherd her students to feel comfortable with conversing in voice or video, but she also understands that recording that first voice or video comment is scary for students (just as it can be for instructors!). Students are afraid of being judged in academic environments. And students with accents often feel embarrassed and shy away from speaking -- in the classroom too!

Keeping all of this in mind, view the video below and pay close attention to the empathy Denise conveys. How does she convey to her students that she understands how they're feeling? And how does she motivate them to to take risks and move outside their comfort zones?

Remember to explore the tabs before moving on to the next page.