Distance Learning, mLearning, Digital Education, Technology

During the first two weeks of class, most faculty work to build a learning community among their learners. Cultivating swift trust should be part of those activities, too. This might be happening serendipitously, but it is important to take a deliberate approach. Because online students do not have the same chances to make small talk before class starts and in between activities, the opportunity to get to know each other in the same ways as their brick and mortar peers do is much less likely or even non-existent. Informal and purely social interactions are hard to come by in most online courses, which erodes the chance of trust being built naturally (Carroll, 2007).

Establishing a connection with online learners is a demonstrated strategy for increasing student motivation in online classes (Jones, Kolloff & Kolloff, 2008) and a marker of instructor excellence (Palloff & Pratt, 2011). Employing the the behaviors and strategies noted below is an effective step towards making your online students' learning more relevant and increasing their investment in your class (DuCharme-Hansen, Dupin-Bryant, 2005).

Discover who is studying online. “Online College Students 2017: Comprehensive Data on Demands and Preferences” explores a survey of 1,500 online students.