How to Outreach Online Students

This document is designed for faculty who are new to online teaching. While seeing students in-person might be your primary form of outreach in your land-based courses, online learning is different. Online educators know that regular outreach, both proactive and reactive, is critical to student persistence and learning in an online course.

General Tips

• Schedule your outreach. Put it in your planner, because otherwise, it will likely slip your mind.
• Mind cognitive load. Be consistent in your outreach, but don’t overwhelm students with constant reminders and messages. This article in Faculty Focus details steps to avoid the trap of the “info dump” in your online communications and outreach.
• Assume the best. This crisis is testing our resources and our patience. Assume the best about students. Offer resources and support. Be flexible with your students, and with yourself.

Proactive Outreach

• Start the week with a message. Let students know the plan for the week including synchronous (same place, same time) and asynchronous activities.
• Consider additional messages as needed. Remind students of important deadlines, share resources, and offer support in 2-3 additional messages throughout the week.

Reactive

• Have a system to track attendance. In our online learning management systems (LMS), we’re able to easily note a students’ last log-in to the course. If you have that data, use it. Contact students who haven’t logged in for a few days to check on them and offer support. If you are operating your course outside of an LMS, identify another method for catching missing students. For example, if you are meeting with students in Zoom during your regularly scheduled class times, take attendance as best you can and reach out to students who don’t attend.
• Be persistent. If you don’t hear back from a student, contact them again. If you have advising support at your institution, contact their advisor. Use multiple communication methods (e.g., email, phone, text, etc.) to reach them.

Tech to Support You

• Your LMS is your first line of support. Most learning management systems make outreach a fairly easy process. You can typically email students from within the LMS.
• Google Voice is a simple, free, private option. Set up a free Google Voice account which will give you a Google phone number. Use this to call or text students.

• Use Remind texting service. Remind allows you to easily text individual students or groups of students via their app. Students who don’t answer phone calls or emails often respond to texts.