Out of Sight, Out of Mind Debunked: Humanizing Asynchronous Online Courses Using an Inclusive Survey

The best way I can describe my very first semester of teaching online asynchronously is “emotionally agonizing.” Having taught students in brick-and-mortar classrooms for most of my 23-year tenure in education, I had grown accustomed to witnessing the positive impact human connection can have on the life trajectory of my community college students. 

After transitioning to the virtual classroom, my first semester was consumed with fear and anxiety. I worried incessantly about how well I was fostering personal connections with my online learners or if I was meeting their socio-academic needs to the best of my ability.  

Today, many of my colleagues who remain wedded to the traditional face-to-face teaching modality share some of the same fears I experienced as a beginning online asynchronous instructor. Most of them attribute their reservations to a few familiar sentiments:

“Asynchronous courses are just too impersonal.”

“Asynchronous learning doesn’t allow me to meet the diverse needs of my students.”

“I’m ‘old-school,’ and I need to see my students on campus.” 

If I were a betting woman, I would bet a hefty sum that my colleagues’ perceptions of asynchronous online learning are shared by tens of thousands of college instructors worldwide. Thankfully, however, there are effective pedagogical approaches we can use to humanize our online teaching practices and diminish many perceived limitations associated with the asynchronous online space.  

Humanize to Optimize

The main focus of humanized teaching is to apply learning science and culturally responsive teaching to the world of asynchronous online courses with the goal of creating an inclusive, equitable class climate for all students. 

As college professors and instructors, we are the content experts and instructional leaders of our courses. Therefore, we must take intentional steps to humanize our asynchronous online classrooms. In doing so, we can optimize our opportunities to demonstrate a strong sense of care for students’ humanity, course success, and belonging.

Frankly, if we are not intentional, I’m afraid we run the risk of the old proverb, “out of sight, out of mind,” becoming a reality for both us and our students. So, how can we implement this philosophy in real-time? 

An Easy First Step: The Inclusive Survey 

Like a typical “getting-to-know” survey, the inclusive survey is an instructor-developed set of questions administered to students during Week 1 of class. 

However, unlike a typical survey, the inclusive survey is an instructor-developed set of questions designed to elicit a deeper understanding of who our learners are on a personal level. It aims to ascertain learners’ cultural needs, accessibility needs, and socio-academic needs for the purposes of successful course completion. 

The following table illustrates the three types of inquiry germane to an inclusive survey, along with their purposes and examples of questions I have included on my inclusive survey at the start of each course.

Types and Purpose of Inquiry Inclusive Survey Question
Cultural Inquiry. Elicits student data to help instructors honor, respect, and visualize the spectrum of diversity represented among students in our online classroom (s). Do you prefer to be called by a different first name? If so, please list below.
What is your preferred gender pronoun?
Which option best describes your Race/Ethnic Identity?}
What is your primary or first language?
Accessibility Inquiry. Elicits data specific to students’ exceptional learning needs and preferred learning style (s).  Do you require special learning accommodations? If so, please email me your accommodation form.
Which style of learning best reflects your academic experiences: visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), kinesthetic (hands-on)?
Socio-Academic Support Inquiry.  Elicits aspects of students’ lived experiences that might hinder their course completion.Are you working while also attending college/school? 
Do you have extenuating circumstances you would like for me to know about (e.g., caretaker, internet concerns).How can I make this course a positive learning experience for you? 

Let’s take a closer look at each type of inquiry, what it hopes to achieve, and how it might affect your interactions with asynchronous students.

Cultural Inquiry

Questions specific to cultural inquiry can convey to students our awareness of society as a multicultural space and can communicate our commitment to honoring their humanity first and foremost. 

Sometimes, it’s the little things that make a quantifiable difference. For instance, each semester, I’m surprised by the number of students who have thanked me for addressing them by their “preferred” name as opposed to their legal first name – it just goes to show that details that may seem minor to outsiders can dramatically impact how and where we feel accepted.

Accessibility Inquiry

Meanwhile, questions specific to accessibility inquiry can convey to students our willingness to help them remove barriers to comprehending our course content and instruction. 

Historically, college students are reluctant to self-disclose their disability status. We also cannot ask students to disclose their status. However, we can privately ask our students if they “require learning accommodations.”  Students’ response to this question gives us an early opportunity to connect students—who might not know the process—with our college’s office of disability services.

Socio-Academic Support Inquiry

Questions specific to socio-academic support inquiry can convey to learners our desire to connect with them on a more personal level while also providing us with information to advocate for and serve as a better human resource for them as they matriculate our course and beyond. 

We expect much from our students each semester. For instance, at the bare minimum, we expect our students to read our course syllabus, listen to our lectures, engage with us and their peers, and complete and submit all assignments on time. 

As a result, I believe it is important for us to know what our students expect of us. Responses articulated from the following question: “What do you expect from me this semester?” illustrate how one short but powerful question can establish an authentic human connection between instructor and students in an asynchronous online course. 

Some common expectations students have shared with me include: 

“Please grade my work in a timely manner.” 

“I would love for you to provide feedback on my graded assignments.”

“I expect you to be polite.” 

The Final Touch: Well-Crafted Instructions

Just as we must be intentional about the types of questions we include in our inclusive survey, we must also be intentional about how we draft instructions for completing our survey. No matter what, survey instructions should always articulate the following:

Purpose of survey

Estimated completion time

Degree of privacy

Next steps

Ultimately, written discourse is equally as powerful as spoken discourse (Gee, 2014). Asking students specific questions can elicit useful micro-data to aid us in fostering a culturally safe, content-accessible, and academically supportive atmosphere for all learners.  

Overall, the inclusive survey is an effective first step towards humanizing the asynchronous online classroom by providing us with a “window” to see our students as unique human beings with different needs and different expectations of us. 

Dr. Brandolyn Jones joined Lone Star College (LSC) in 2016 as a full-time faculty member at the Kingwood campus and in 2021 was selected as one of 40 LSC full-time faculty members to join LSC-Online. She teaches aspiring educators pursuing their Associates of Arts in Teaching (AAT) degree.  Prior to LSC, Dr. Jones taught students in the Department of Educational Leadership at Sam Houston State University and spent 15 years teaching and leading in PK-12 public school districts in Texas. 

Dr. Jones earned a bachelor of Arts degree and a doctorate in educational leadership from Sam Houston State University and a master of education in administration from Tarleton State University.  Jones has presented at numerous state and national conferences and her research is published in several peer-reviewed journals.

References

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (Eds.). (2003). Strategies of qualitative inquiry. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Gargiulo, R. M., & Bouck, E. (2019). Special education in contemporary society: An introduction to exceptionality. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications.

Gay, G. (2010). Culturally responsive teaching: Theory, research, and practice. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Gee, J. P. (2014). Introduction to discourse analysis: Theory and method. New York, NY: Routledge.

Glazier, R. A. (2021). Connecting in the online classroom: Teachers, students, and building rapport in online learning. John Hopkins University Press. 

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2020). How to humanize your online class, version 2.0 [Infographic]