Paola Ziska

Maintaining individual student engagement can help students who tend to procrastinate due to the lack of face to face interactions with peers and instructors. Conflict resolution can also be challenging because of the informality of online interactions and should be handled with tact.

It is important to keep students engaged in the online setting and providing ways for them to feel your presence, whether it is through active participation of the instructor in chat and discussion boards, providing video lectures as well as opportunities for synchronous and asyncronous learning.

Giving students the opportunity to know you as a professional, including your skills, experience and qualifications is especially important in online education because the lack of physical presence makes it harder for the course to feel personal for the students. 

Varying your teaching style and methods will help to engage students of all learning styles, help keep them interested, and maintain variety in your curriculum

Getting to know your students as individuals as well as allowing them to get to know you helps establish a relationship of trust and helps students to feel more comfortable with the instructor overall. Taking the time to greet each student as class begins and giving the them opportunities to seek support before or after class can improve their engagement and allow them to feel more comfortable coming forward for additional help.

Preparing for instruction goes beyond the writing and researching, it is also about the mental preparation and methods the instructor uses to get comfortable with the material, teaching environment and students. Taking the time to learn to correctly pronounce the names of students and actively engaging with them one on one can provide valuable feedback that can help guide and shift teaching strategies to better fit the needs of the learners.

Instruction should always be student centered, and student focused. Modeling the professionalism you would like to see in yourself and your colleagues is one of the best ways to exemplify to students the expectations and professionalism that will allow them to reach their professional goals. Teaching is also a learning process that requires humility and self reflection in order to refine your ability to successfully teach and engage students.

Student engagement can be enhanced and frustration minimized if the instructor is informed about the student's current curriculum and by accurately posting grades, announcements and changes in a timely manner.