How do you adapt your online teaching strategies to different disciplines and levels?

I think there is actually a step before this. If one has long experience teaching in person, one is likely to want to ‘adapt’ material. Instead, think about your disciplinary goals and subject matter material in terms of the mode of delivery (online, asynchronous, etc, THEN decide which of your pedagogical goals can best be met with which opportunities you have in that mode.

One way to model this is to create a video of yourself as the instructor, recording some personal and professional information, such as where you earned your degrees, how you started your career, why you like your career, etc. Personalizing your online class will help them see you are a human being and not a robot.

One top: ask students to fill out a personalized form (a Google form or Microsoft Form). You can ask them specific question about their past experience with the subject, what they are worried about, etc. It should only be a 5-10 minute activity. Then, you can use the information on the form to start personalizing the course for those students!

One thing I found very helpful is to dedicate some space before the first teaching week to get to know the students and for the students to get to know each other and figure out what everyone's expectations and ideal learning outcomes are. It is important that student's feel that their pre-existing knowledge and experience is valued in the course.

Establishing an online learning community that embraces respect, trust, hopefulness, and curiosity will open doors for adolescents who might have a propensity to tune out. To better know your students, engage them more on a one to one level like keeping one student on at the end of the video conference to chat with or sending accolades to students by individual name

Be purposeful. Not everything needs to be active. What matters, really, is that you are incorporating the learning experiences into your broader educational ecosystem. This allows you to diversify instruction.

Multimodal elements can enrich a students learning experience significantly but it is pivotal that any tools used in the classroom (media and other) have been checked carefully in terms of accessibility. Often this is missed in the excitement of trying out new tools but this can create additional barriers for some students to participate.

In order to keep adolescent's attention online it is important to toggle between multiple media and modalities. If you go into lecture mode for the class meeting, students will tune out immediately. Depending on what platform you are using for the video conference call, you could even set up discussion rooms or break out rooms for students to engage with each other and carry out a meaningful discussion about the curriculum. There are a variety of educational apps and websites to use to keep students engaged like Flip, Quizlet, Quizizz, Blooket, Pear Deck, Screencastify to name a few.

I began adding a personal podcast to my courses during Covid, when recorded lectures were not engaging, no matter how brilliant I thought they were. I created the podcasts based on experience as well as hosted guests, bringing the real world into the classroom. The caliber of guests is impressive given the ease of modality; almost all executives are happy to take 30 minutes to engage college students. Podcasting inside the classroom is a unique methodology that is a key differentiator in the quality of my courses. I have created assignments with the podcasts and that works well. My courses use open educational resources, so podcasting provides yet another source of rich content that is meaningful, easy to digest, and relevant.

This is so key. Here's a way to level up. Allow students to make a choice together, and stick to it. This can be as simple as having students choose a text or an activity. But no matter what, make sure you're giving students the ability to choose something that really matters.

For students to be engaged with the learning process in your class, you want to offer them a variety of choices. This can accomplish several things. First, it will make them feel pride or ownership in what they are trying to accomplish simply because they are making it their own; Second, students will feel a sense of autonomy to complete the project or assignment at their own pacing, for its appropriate breadth or depth, and making their own choices; Third, students can explore better and learn better when they are in the driver's seat making decisions and feeling a sense of autonomy. They will construct their own learning from these experiences.

I encourage choice of delivery for the final assignment in my Collaboration course. I provide a case study with the goal to apply the theories from Hackman’s model of building a team. The case study is about a restaurant team with issues. The student assumes the role of a new manager and they are tasked with creating a plan for this poor-performing restaurant. The students choose any format to provide the response including a written essay, podcast, skit, news report, rap song, Pinterest board, scrapbook, infographic, reality show episode, interview, brochure, flip book, or anything else that could provide the information in a unique way. They have access to the Adobe suite of software as well. The creativity of my students astounds me!