Online...With Feelings

Introduction: Teaching Online Without Losing Your Soul

If you have been teaching online since COVID, you already know this truth: simply replicating face-to-face teaching does not provide all the elements needed in an online environment. But equally, removing all personal connections makes it less than desirable for everyone involved.

Raise your hand if you have been in an online meeting where you felt you could not contribute much, where it was not clear why you were there, and where you mostly got talked at. Now transfer that same experience to the online classroom. Your students feel exactly the same way when online teaching is done poorly.

The motto for a positive online experience is simple: maximize the personal and the engagement, minimize the confusion and passiveness.

Whether you are delivering university lectures, school lessons, professional development workshops, or corporate training sessions, these principles apply. The specifics of your platform or your audience might differ, but the human elements that make online teaching work remain the same.

One aspect that people always bring up when you ask what is good about participating in person in a class is the personal connection with their peers and teachers. The fact that you will be teaching remotely does not need to be a barrier to making online learning just as connected and personal as a classroom experience, minus the four walls. However, it is the little things that bring the experience down: the absent teacher who seldom answers posts or messages, the lack of personality, the session that starts and gets down to business without the nicety of a real interaction (even for pre-recorded sessions), and for live sessions, no interaction, no way to comment and ask questions, no space for connecting with other students or options provided for study groups.

The other detracting aspect is disorganisation and confusion. What, when, how and why for every aspect of the course should be spelled out clearly, and everything should be easy to find at any time. From what will be learned and why, to how feedback will be received on assessment.

This guide will show you how to bring the human element back into online teaching without burning yourself out in the process.

The Human Connection: Being Present Without Being There

Personal, Enthusiastic and Friendly

The missing physical presence in the online environment can be overcome by creating a connected learning community. This requires both teacher and students to get to know each other, to look at the learning environment not just as a learning space but a social space, providing opportunities for informal communication.

Sometimes it is as easy as leaving a bit of time at the end of the online live session for students to stay back and talk, having an icebreaking question at the beginning of each session, creating a discussion board or using external tools like Padlet for a get-to-know-each-other space, having regular mini posts or mini podcasts, using chat features, using audio feedback for assessment instead of text, or organising an online celebration. In other words, shorten the distance created by being online by finding ways to infuse more social interaction and connection.

The Little Things That Matter

It is often the small gestures that make students feel seen and valued:

Start with personality. Do not just jump straight into content in your videos or live sessions. A simple "Good morning, I hope you are all doing well" or a brief story about your weekend can make an enormous difference. Students need to know there is a human being on the other side of the screen.

Be present and responsive. If you have set up discussion forums, discussion boards, or collaborative spaces, actually participate in them. Comment on what students are sharing. Ask follow-up questions. Acknowledge good contributions. The absent teacher who never responds to posts sends a clear message that student participation does not matter.

Pay particular attention to reserved and less engaged students. A follow-up personal email to ensure they are coping well or to ask how they are going is a great motivator. Often the students who need the most support are the ones who are least likely to ask for it.

Create bonding opportunities. Have a set of icebreaking questions that students need to answer with each other in a breakout room, or create a series of spaces where students can upload a short video introduction about themselves. Consider setting up a buddy system pairing on-campus and off-campus students, or creating informal discussion spaces where students can talk about things that are not directly related to course content.

Making Space for Connection

If your session is long (more than one hour), think about breaking it up with activities that students can do away from the main online meeting. This could be completing a forum discussion, a collaborative activity, or a group task. This gives students time to process what they have learned, gives you a breather to prepare the next segment, and creates opportunities for students to connect with each other in smaller groups.

Synchronous vs Asynchronous: Choosing the Right Mode

One of the biggest decisions in online teaching is when to bring everyone together in real time (synchronous) and when to let students engage on their own schedule (asynchronous). Both have their place, and understanding when to use each can make your online teaching far more effective.

Synchronous Interactions: Live and Immediate

Synchronous interactions happen in real time, whether through video conferencing, live sessions, or real-time discussions. They work best when:

• You need immediate feedback and clarification
• The content benefits from live discussion and debate
• Students need to collaborate in real time
• You want to build community and connection quickly

While students are divided into groups or pairs or working alone on activities, the instructor has time to take a breath, organise the next task, monitor student activity or check comments in the chat. Breaking up a session into chunks where talks or exposition is followed by a task also gives students the chance to digest and process better what they are learning.

Use breakout rooms to organise groups or pairs so there are no distractions during task time. Use the chat and polls for quick feedback. Think about ways you can capture the interaction and have a record of what students did, like a shareable wall, document, chat, or whiteboard.

Asynchronous Interactions: Time and Space to Think

Asynchronous interactions happen across time and space, usually through discussion forums, recorded sessions, or collaborative documents. They work best when:

• Students need time to reflect before responding
• You want to include students in different time zones
• The discussion benefits from thoughtful, considered responses
• You want to create a permanent record of student thinking

The mental space offered in asynchronous interaction allows students to reflect on content, ideas and issues, providing more meaningful participation. But this is only achieved with careful planning and engaged teacher participation.

The three most common reasons asynchronous activities fail:

1. Technical issues - Students cannot access the platform or do not know how to use it
2. Poor planning - Objectives and expectations are unclear
3. Lack of teacher engagement - No feedback or response from the instructor

Making asynchronous activities successful:

Be clear about what students need to do (practice, comment, learn), how and how often. Provide clear and detailed instructions. Test the technology from both a teacher and student perspective to ensure everything will work consistently and as intended. Have a Plan B just in case technical issues come up, and provide a test-practice first session to address possible issues early on.

For text-based discussions, provide netiquette guidelines to ensure that interactions are in the appropriate context and set dos and do nots. Start with an icebreaker or activity that is low risk to allow students to get used to the kind of activities you will expect from them.

Ensure that your presence is constant. Provide feedback, comment on what students are doing in the asynchronous space, not only there but also during live sessions. A good strategy is to start your session with a comment about student participation in the asynchronous space. For example: "I was really pleased to see that in discussing X there were a lot of you commenting on X and raising valuable points about Y." If you can make it personal and mention some students by name, even better.

If the activity is part of their assessment, ensure that marking and feedback are prompt and meaningful.

Quick Engagement Strategies You Can Use Tomorrow

Sometimes the best strategies are the simplest ones. Here are a few activities you can implement immediately to increase engagement in your online teaching.

The 3-2-1 Activity

At the end of your session, ask your students to write:

• 3 things they did not know before
• 2 things that surprised or intrigued them
• 1 thing they will learn more about (either because it was particularly interesting or they need to understand better)

This works as an exit activity, a quick formative assessment, and a way to see what resonated with students.

Exit Ticket

At the end of the session, ask students to write:

• 1 thing they learned in the session
• 1 thing they found difficult or confusing

This gives you immediate feedback on what is working and what needs more attention in the next session.

Tweet Your Session

Ask students to summarise the content of the session in 140 characters (or 280 if you are feeling generous). This forces them to distil the main ideas and identify what matters most.

The Wish Survey and Reflection

This activity is in two parts:

Week 1: Students write why they have enrolled in the course, anything they know already about the subject (if anything), what they are hoping to learn, and what they think they will find challenging.

End of semester: Students go back to what they wrote in week one and write a short reflection on what they now know, whether their worries about challenges did or did not eventuate, and whether this experience has opened new ideas or possibilities.

This creates a beautiful arc of learning that students can see for themselves.

The Organization Essentials: Structure Matters

Your Learning Management System is not the enemy. In fact, it is one of your best partners in teaching online. But like any partnership, you need to work with it intentionally. How you organize your LMS, how you structure your modules, how you label your materials - all of this makes an enormous difference to whether students feel supported or lost. Think of your LMS as the home base for your course. If students cannot find what they need easily, all your careful planning for engagement and connection starts to unravel.

Good teaching is always about clear communication and organisation, but in online teaching it becomes absolutely critical. Students cannot catch you after class to ask a quick question. They cannot see the assignment due date written on the board. Everything needs to be spelled out clearly and be easy to find.

Clear Communication

Use announcements, forums, labels, and any other communication tools available to ensure that everything is clear and that at any point students know what to do. Because of the nature of working online, include instructions about any technical skills or tools students need to use. For some online courses, it is worth creating an Orientation Module to ensure students have all the information and skills needed to successfully learn online.

Well-Organized and Structured Content

Organize content in modules with clear headings and descriptions. Have a clear and easy-to-follow site, and keep in mind that students these days use their mobile devices to access course materials, so think "small screen" when you are designing your online space.

Assessment and Feedback

All assessment obviously needs to be online, but think creatively about what that can look like. Consider podcasts, videos, audio assessment, collaborative projects, and other formats beyond just written assignments. All assessment needs to have clear explanations in terms of what is expected, how it will be assessed (provide rubrics), and any technical requirements needed to complete it successfully.

All feedback also needs to be provided online with a clear indication of when feedback will be provided. Use audio or video feedback features to personalise your comments. Hearing your voice or seeing your face as you provide feedback makes it feel much more personal and connected than text alone.

Recorded or Pre-Recorded Sessions

If you are recording sessions, teach your students to use any available tools to make notes or ask clarifying questions in recorded sessions, and learn to use these tools yourself to connect with your students. Think of making both live and pre-recorded sessions interactive.

Also, think creatively with sessions. Do they really need to all be videos? Short audio podcast sessions are also good, so think about how to engage your students in different ways with your session materials. In my past when I was teaching using online sessions, I had a range of online session types, from audio podcasts to guided notes sprinkled with links and questions for students to explore. Be creative and break out of the mold.

Engage, Share and Collaborate

If making learning active and engaging is important in a face-to-face and blended offering, it is even more important in an online context. The importance of collaborative learning cannot be overstated when it comes to ensuring positive online learning experiences.

Group work and teamwork need to be part of online delivery, not just for assessment (although well-constructed and real-world group assessment is a powerful learning experience), but also for promoting online group discussions, team activities, and collaborative projects. This is important both from a learning and social aspect.

Provide spaces for students to share knowledge and understanding, places for students to help each other through discussion forums, and allow student groups to organise and be accountable to each other and the teacher for their contribution. Students tend to disappear and disengage when they are not included or not missed.

Staying Sustainable: The 3 P Principle

Online teaching done well takes planning and energy, but it does not have to lead to burnout. The key is to work smarter, not harder, and to have systems in place that support you.

Plan, Prepare, Prevent

Plan: Prepare a detailed plan for what you will do in your sessions. It might be old school, but a lesson plan is a great tool. It is easy to get distracted or off course in online teaching. The multitasking nature of managing people who are virtually connected can take time and inject unexpected challenges, and having a clear plan, including a Plan B, is paramount.

Prepare: Have a dry run with some colleagues as volunteers to try out your plan ahead of your first real session, including all the activities and tools you will be using. Make any changes necessary if you run into issues that are too complex to be resolved well. Test everything, including your Plan B.

Prevent: Ensure that any technology students will be using has been installed and tested ahead of the first session. In your very first session, ensure that you spend adequate time explaining how the session will be run, what expectations you have from your students, and run the session by including as many tools as possible that you will be using for the rest of the semester. You want your students to be comfortable with the format of your sessions from the start and iron out any issues at this point in time.

Have a Plan B (And Test It)

Technology fails. It just does. Have a backup plan for when your video conferencing platform crashes, when the interactive tool does not load, or when your internet connection drops. Know how you will communicate with students if the main platform goes down. Have alternative activities ready if a planned technology-based activity does not work.

And critically: test your Plan B the same way you test your Plan A. A backup plan is useless if you have never tried it.

Be Prepared to Pivot

Be prepared to go with your Plan B if things do not work out at any point, rather than waste time resolving issues that might disrupt your class. Your students will appreciate smooth transitions far more than they will care about whether you used the exact tool or activity you had originally planned.

Moving Beyond Survival Mode

During COVID, many of us were thrust into online teaching with little preparation or training. We did what we had to do to get through. But now it is time to move beyond survival mode and think about what intentional, well-designed online teaching actually looks like.

Online teaching does not mean losing the human connection. It does not mean students passively watching videos alone in their rooms. It does not mean you need to be available 24/7 or respond to every message within minutes.

What it does mean is being thoughtful about how you create presence and connection, how you structure activities for engagement, how you communicate clearly, and how you sustain yourself while sustaining your students.

You can teach online without losing your soul. It just takes intention, planning, and a willingness to put the feelings back into the experience.

Happy Teaching
Grazia