Communicating and engaging with students during online learning

Communicating and engaging with students during online learning

Dr Jessica Welch
Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

Establishing and maintaining good communication students is essential for effective subject delivery, and for students to feel supported in and their learning. Building a sense of community in large classes is challenging especially online. The move to online teaching in 2020 provided opportunities to implement and assess methods for student communication and engagement. Synchronous and asynchronous approaches were implemented in both a third-year undergraduate core subject in the Bachelor of Biomedicine (semester 1, 600 students), and a second-year subject available to both Bachelors of Science and Biomedicine students (semester 2, 240 students). Some engagement methods deployed enhanced the student experience, while others were less effective.

This Zoom presentation was part of the Melbourne CSHE Teaching and Learning Conference 2021 held on Tuesday 1 June 2021.