We interviewed Bucks County Community College instructor, Erin Cole, about building student engagement in online courses.

How would you recommend a new faculty member get started?

“I recommend new faculty members get comfortable with using the SmartBook® first. Preview the assignment as a student and take the time to read and answer the questions from a student's perspective. This will allow you to understand what questions are being asked, how long it will take students to read the chapter, what happens if they answer the question wrong, and why they need to rate their confidence level. If you are enthusiastic about the SmartBook, you will pass this enthusiasm onto your students.”

What are some of the standards you need to keep in mind?

"I think it is important to begin with the end in mind. Using the backward design process is useful to make sure that the assignments are designed for students to achieve the course learning goals. For example, one of the courses learning objectives in my Intro to Sociology course is for students to " ‘demonstrate the ability to read critically, analyze and interpret information and construct logical, well-supported positions on current social and political issues."' The Power of Process assignments directly align with this goal.

The OSCQR Rubric provided as a resource in the online learning consortium is extremely useful in allowing you to design and evaluate your course based on established standards in multiple areas. Using the standards provided in the rubric can give faculty a guide to enhancing engagement.

In an online classroom, it is important to build a community from the very beginning. I email students before the course begins to introduce myself and provide important information about the course. Once the course begins, I include a “Welcome to the Course” video explaining course goals and expectations, and also why I love teaching Sociology! I post a ‘“Getting to Know You’” discussion board where students introduce themselves to each other in the class. I also post an icebreaker question. For example, “If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?” After the students respond, I message each student and respond directly to what they posted in the discussion forum. Throughout the course, I design assignments that ask the students to apply these concepts to their own lives. These concepts become relevant outside of the course.

I make sure my course is accessible to all students. It is easier to make your course accessible from the beginning instead of scrambling to make it accessible after a student with accessibility needs registers for your course. Connect has a filter when creating assignments using the question bank to only include questions that allow keyboard navigation. Most Learning Management Systems also have an accessibility checker feature. The concept clips in Connect all have closed captioning.”

What specific McGraw Hill Connect® tools would you recommend using?

"The assignments I find most useful in helping students develop their sociological imagination are the ‘In Their Shoes’ assignments because these assignments really emphasize how you can view social issues from a different perspective.

The Power of Process assignments are also useful in helping students think critically while reading these articles. I really like that students can highlight and annotate sections of the article and then return to summarize and analyze what they just read.

One of the article choices in the Power of Process assignments is called, “The Gender Blur: Where Does Biology End and Society Take Over?” This assignment asks students to examine the dividing line between sex and gender from a sociological perspective. You can ask students to consider the title before they even read the article and describe what they think the article is about.  Then, as students make their way around the wheel, they can highlight and annotate new vocabulary and the most important information in the article. Finally, you can ask students to analyze what they just read by developing an argument, decide what’s missing, or make connections with the text. This tool helps the students think critically about the article as they navigate the questions around the wheel.

Students have provided very positive feedback on both of these assignments. They are a fun, interactive way to apply these concepts."

What assets or strategies do you find most effective for engaging students in the core text/course content students need to know in an online environment, and how do you recommend deploying them?

“The ‘In Their Shoes’ assignments is my favorite tool in Connect because it really emphasizes how you can view social issues from a different perspective. Students place themselves in someone else's shoes in order to explore issues like Gender Stratification, Racial and Ethnic Inequality, and Social Control. I use these assignments in a variety of ways throughout the semester.

One the characters students like most is Terrence. Terrence is an honor roll student who lives in a rough neighborhood with a lot of gang activity. Students must place themselves in Terrence’s shoes and make decisions for him about whether or not to join a gang and whether he should risk being expelled from school by getting a tattoo to show solidarity to the gang. There are no right or wrong answers to the decisions students make for the crises Terrence faces. Students are awarded points based on content questions that appear through the simulation. This assignment can also be linked to a discussion in the LMS where students share what decisions they made for Terrence and why and if they would make the same decisions again if given the chance. In the discussion forum, students can engage with each other based on the different decisions that were made and gain more insight into other students’ perspectives.”