If your course is closer to an unmanned drone than a vibrant communal learning space, you are in good company. The term Asynchronous is becoming almost synonymous with A-social and A-taught. I read a passage in a book the other day and it said, “Asynchronous, meaning without a teacher.” I had to blink at that one. Were they right?

Asynchronous doesn’t mean what many people THINK it means. Technically, it is a “state of not being synchronized”. It is supposed to be a type of online learning that is self-paced, student-centered and flexible. It breaks our addiction to building-dependent learning and it is a very powerful opportunity for education.

The unfortunate reality is, many asynchronous courses run on a kind of autopilot. We create a bunch of lessons and assignments, and they go do them. This is the where the disconnect happens, I think. After the course design stage, the teacher morphs into a [notifier] who lets students know when they are falling behind or clarifies something fuzzy in the assignment. Then, the teacher is [marker] who grades the papers and posts their marks. There is minimal interaction between students and with the teacher. Recognizing this, the vast majority of feedback I get from teachers is still the same. “Even when I give them opportunities to share with each other or meet together live online, hardly anyone ever does.” My response is this.

Why would they? They’re total strangers.

There are some things you can’t put in a chip. It’s the strength of the human heart. The difference between us and machines.
– Terminator: Salvation

I think a major problem in eLearning is that we try to have it both ways. We want the engagement and collaboration because we know it leads to richer learning. But … let’s face it … we’d also rather have a machine marking our quizzes at the same time. Greater automation brings decreased human contact. That’s the whole point of it.

This is especially the case when teacher / student ratios are calculated by “Cyberdine Systems” and there are just too many learners to manage without a mechanized type of efficiency. The result? We don’t get the behaviors we were counting on. Instead of increased engagement and constructivist learning, we get abandonment and/or buy out.

No one wants to take a course from a computer. They want to take a course using one.

Teaching an asychronous class demands high levels of finesse from the teacher. Far from being a flight attendant, the teacher in these classes is dealing with a wide variety of abilities, needs and performance issues. The irony is that this type of course requires a rock star teacher handling it, with carefully monitored student enrollment numbers.

I find the whole idea of the MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) to be a very interesting case study in this exact thing. What happens when the finest schools on the planet offer free courses with thousands of students in them? About a 15% completion rate.

So, what’s the magic answer? I don’t have one. I do have a few suggestions to help make asynchronous courses more engaging and community-driven for our learners. Here are 5 ideas:

1. Assign asynchronous courses to teachers who are masterful at engaging with students.
2. Use social media in every way possible, especially Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.
3. Humanize the appearance and design of the course
4. Present content with a voice, not just a file repository of PDF articles.
5. Find the fun. 40% find online courses boring? Gamify! Add triggers and HUMOUR!!

We have to TEACH our asynchronous courses. We just need to do it differently. What are your thoughts? Do you have any of these challenges? Any great strategies?

Drop me a note below or tweet @neela_bell I’d love to hear from you.