Imagine a group of learners you can’t see. They work at home, and the classic “observation clues” classroom teachers have aren’t available to you:

– The random, too-fast page flip
– Distracted non-attending during instructional time
– Reading aloud miscues (skipping words, substitutions, etc)
– Blank stares
– Peering at others’ answers
– work avoidance

… These clues are just some of the red flags that a student may be struggling with their school work.

The challenge in asynchronous online learning, is that students work away from the teacher, often on their own. The freedom to set their own pace through the material is part of the draw for many learners. Unfortunately, this puts a kind of “blindfold” on asynchronous teachers making them rely on a unique set of skills to support students.

Solutions?

I’ve been lucky enough to work with many fantastic online educators, and here are a some of their ideas for supporting struggling students in asynchronous classrooms:

– Office hours for drop-in help (running Blackboard, Elluminate Live, etc)
– Pretests to flag students early
– Building in quick “exit slip” type quizzes at key points in the course
– Poodle plugin for audio submissions and reading aloud (Helpful for K-6 especially)
– Triggered reviews when scores are low
– Admin Reports to track student engagement data with assignments
– Reflective journals about their progress

I think the key to helping support learners is to use the technology itself to keep us in the loop and on top of their needs.

So, what do you find helps support struggling learners in asynchronous classes? Comment, like or tweet below! I’d love to hear from you.