Online Faculty Accelerator
Please review NLU's Guiding Principles and Best Practices for Educators page to engage with a wealth of resources to build your instructional practice.
We ask that all faculty who teach our fully online sections complete the NLU Excellence in Online and Remote Teaching modules.
In a hurry to get started? Check out our cheat sheet below with strategies for success!
Pedagogical tips can be found on the left side of the screen, while tech tips can be found to the right.
Be Active
- Log in often, preferably every day.
- Instructor, limited time availability? Check the "Ask Your Instructor" tab
- If course has under 15-20 students, respond to all initial discussion posts every week
- If course has over 15-20 students, respond to one-half of students every week and rotate to ensure everyone receives feedback
Be Accessible
- Ensure students have availability and contact information to reach you. Minimum: Email and phone number
- Schedule and promote at least one designated office hour (via Zoom) for students to meet with you and note “available upon request” (for those students unable to meet during your scheduled office hour.
- Be sure to include time zones with scheduled meetings and office hours.
Humanize the Course
Be Yourself!
Consider the use of Instructor Videos
- Record and post a video within a D2L Announcement (VideoNote)
- Record a synchronous Zoom session and post it to D2L (Panopto)
- Record audio/video feedback to individual students in Gradebook (VideoNote)
- Add captions to videos (Panopto)
- Not comfortable with videos? Use voice thread
For a more in-depth look at how to humanize a course, please review the Creating Faculty Presence in an Online Environment page of the Excellence in Online and Remote Teaching web content, or the Building Community page from the High Impact Teaching Strategies web content.
Build Community
- Schedule a brief Zoom meet and greet in Week 1 of asynchronous courses.
- Seek opportunities for students to collaborate, even if the course is asynchronous (e.g., peer-to-peer writing feedback, project groups, etc.).
- Respond to each student’s “Introductions” Discussion Board with a personalized welcome.
- Consider a “class biography” activity for students to build connections with each other (e.g., collaborative slide deck, one slide per student to customize).
- Strive to connect course content to students’ lives, identities, experiences, and personal/professional goals. (cf. Culturally Responsive Teaching)
- Be inclusive – make space for students to identify their pronouns and serve as a model for this action.
For more detailed information on how to build community, please review the Creating Faculty Presence in an Online Environment page of the Excellence in Online and Remote Teaching web content, or the Building Community page from the High Impact Teaching Strategies web content.
Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)
Teaching and learning at NLU is research-based and it is geared to meet the needs of our unique student population. We serve a diverse student body through an equally diverse set of knowledgeable faculty trained in cutting-edge teaching practices. Teaching and learning at NLU is also professionally-focused, accessible, innovative and hands-on. Our online faculty are carefully selected because of their drive to provide the kind of education that NLU believes in and has proven successful. For this reason, we’ve developed methods to ensure that students have a consistent experience with faculty that are engaged from day-to-day, week-to-week, and those that evidence our commitment to The U.S. Department of Education’s final rules on Distance Education and Innovation to meet the requirements of “regular and substantive interaction” (RSI). The tenets of RSI include the following:
- “Regular” is defined as taking place on a “predictable and scheduled basis” - and -
- “Substantive” means students are engaged through teaching, learning, and assessment as well as at least two of these five activities:
- Providing direct instruction (remotely or in a traditional classroom)
- Assessing and/or providing feedback on a student's coursework
- Providing information and/or responding to questions about the content of a course or competency
- Facilitating a group discussion (or other interactive activity) regarding the content of a course or competency
- Employing instructional activities approved by the institution's or program's accrediting agency
There are three important categories of activities that are critical to meeting this standard and in maintaining an engaging and meaningful online classroom at NLU:
- Instructor-initiated interaction
- Regular, scheduled, and predictable interactions
- Substantive interactions.
In the drop-down below are examples of how NLU faculty regularly and substantively engage their students in the online classroom in relation to these activity categories.
Here are some examples of how NLU faculty regularly and substantively engage their students in the online classroom in relation to these activity categories.
Examples of Instructor-initiated interactions
- Individual phone calls, texts, and emails from Instructor to Students.
Examples of Instructor-initiated interactions that are also regular and predictable
- Weekly Course Announcements: Online faculty post 1-2 weekly course announcements to provide students with clarification of weekly learning objectives and assignments. These announcements are provided. Some announcements are offered via personal video to personalize and create instructor presence in the online classroom. Additional announcements may provide opportunities for help sessions or review key components of major assignments in course.
Examples of interactions that are instructor-initiated and substantive
- Meet/Greet First Week and Synchronous Meetings: Meet/Greet held first week with synchronous meetings scheduled at varied internals for duration of course to review syllabus, NLU resources, and overview course-related technology.
- Additional forums initiated by the Online faculty which serve as key components in the learning process throughout the course include Specific Announcements posted that address difficult concepts, terminology or processes to progress toward proficiency of course content.
- Posting questions and presenting real life examples from course presentations and textbook in weekly discussion boards and via Zoom review sessions that prompt critical thinking of students and promote understanding of course learning objectives.
Examples of Instructor-initiated interactions that are regular, predictable, and substantive
- Office Hours (Weekly and By Appointment): Online faculty hold regularly scheduled 1-2 hours meetings each week on designated days. Online faculty also available by appointment via Zoom outside scheduled office hours.
- Discussion Engagement (Weekly): Interactive dialogue between Online faculty and students throughout the week in Discussion Forum.
- Grading Feedback (Weekly): Substantive feedback provided each week by Online faculty to individual students within 7 days of its due date. Instructor feedback is shared through written and other means, including audio to personalize the online classroom experience.
- Synchronous Learning Activities: lab assignments, hands-on activities, group activities, presentations, practicum interactions, and on-site supervision, as applicable.
