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What’s New for Faculty for July 2010
How to Make Late-Arrival Students Feel Welcome in Your Online Course

As the fall semester gets underway, some of us may still be admitting “late add” students to our online courses. Most schools will have a certain “add period” during which students can still be added to a course at the start of the term. Such “late adds” can occur when our class has initially sold out quickly, as so many online courses seem to do. Then a student will drop and another one will eagerly take his or her place. Or we may get requests for waiting lists and notify such students of last-minute vacancies ourselves.

We want to make sure we are doing all we can to get such “late adds” on-board with our course as comfortably for them as possible. At the same time, we do not want to cause undue disruption with regard to in-progress activities for the on-time starters. Here are some things you may want to be aware of to help keep things running smoothly for both the new arrivals and your current students.

Group Work

A new arrival will need to be placed in a group as quickly as possible. Of course, the ideal scenario would be to have enough “late adds” join you at the same time to all be placed in their own newly formed group. However, this may not always be the case. More typically, you may have to place the late-adding student into an already existing group.

When I’ve needed to do so, I offer extra credit points to the group members where I place the new arrival. I explain to them that this is a reward for their collegiality in welcoming their new member. It is also intended as compensation for the fact that they will need to work a little harder to shift some things around, renegotiate how they will function as a team, to make room for their new member. I also offer an extension on the current and perhaps next assignment or two, to give them that additional margin of time to get reformulated as a new team.

Accessibility of Course Materials

Another issue you may face with late arrival students is accessibility to the course textbook or other learning materials. Of course, with the growing use of e-books, this may not be a concern. But if you are still using paper versions of textbooks in your course, you may face at least one of two problems. One is that perhaps the book has sold out of the bookstore, at least temporarily, by the time the student has been able to register late. Another is that students who work during the day when the bookstore is open, or who live at a distance from the campus bookstore, may not be able to get there immediately to purchase their learning materials.

One thing you can look into is whether the publisher of your textbook will allow you to upload one or two chapters as Adobe Acrobat pdf files to your class for your students to download in case they don’t yet have their books. Some publishers have such pdf files available to all instructors to adopt their textbook. This, by the way, can also be a lifesaver to even on-time students who must depend on long-distance ordering of their books and can often encounter similar backorders of needed learning materials.

The above are just a few challenges that can be successfully overcome to make such new arrivals become quickly acclimated to your online course. Wishing you a great continued start to your fall semester!

Coming Up
Upcoming Online Courses
Advanced Teaching Online ,
with William A. Draves & Mary Dereshiwsky, August 23 - 27

How to Teach Adults ,
with William A. Draves, August 23 - 27

Multiple Assessments and New Ways of Grading,
October 5 - 6

Designing Online Instruction,
with Dr. Rita-Marie Conrad, November 1 - 5

Building Online Learning Communities ,
with Rena Pallof & Keith Pratt , November 29 - December 3

Brochure now available


Our complete 2010 calendar of online events for faculty now available! To get your copy, just email Chris at chris@lern.org   Free of course.

 
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