This is it, the week you’ve been waiting for!

Open Education Week is an annual celebration that raises awareness of global efforts to make learning more “open” — that is, more affordable and accessible to students everywhere. Every March, this weeklong, online event gives educators and students an opportunity to learn more about open educational practices and be inspired by the work being developed around the world, including by Oregon State University faculty.

Please join us for Open Education Week this year to learn how you can get involved and make a meaningful difference in the lives of OSU students.

What: Open Education Week
When: March 2-6, 2026
Where: Fully online
Who: Higher education faculty, students and thought leaders

What is an OER?

OER or open educational resources are openly licensed educational materials. What makes them different from other educational materials is the fact that they carry a Creative Commons (CC) license. This means that the person who created the OER, which could be a textbook, assessments, media, course syllabi, etc., has made it possible for others to reuse, revise, remix, redistribute and retain the work without needing to ask for permission. And, even better, OERs are FREE! How does this work in practice? Here’s an example. A professor at OSU writes a textbook on cell biology specifically for the course and gives it a Creative Commons license. Their students now have access to a free textbook on cell biology, tailored to the course, and saving the students hundreds of dollars. The students can keep it as long as they want (no rental returns or use limits). A professor at another university can take that same cell biology textbook and, without worrying about copyright violations or fair use evaluations, reorder the contents to better fit their course syllabus. They can add new, updated content like a recent discovery in gene therapy, or they can remove content that does not meet their course needs. Then they can release this work under a Creative Commons license, providing their students with a free textbook (also saving them oodles of money). It a win-win. Here at Oregon State University, since 2019, our students have saved more than $20 million thanks to OSU faculty who use free textbooks or other free and low-cost learning materials in their classes.

Why is this important?

Students have access to their course materials on day one and everyone has equal access to the course content.
Students don’t have to decide between buying textbooks and rent or food and they don’t have to reduce the number of courses they are taking because they won’t be able to pay for the course materials.
Students report feeling less stressed and a stronger sense of belonging when they don’t have to worry about affording their course materials.
Faculty can customize the course materials, aligning them with course learning outcomes, and making them more relevant to local circumstances or current events.
Faculty can support students as active creators of knowledge by having them contribute to and even create OER materials (open pedagogy).
Faculty can increase their own teaching impact by creating OER that are used across the globe.
Studies have shown that students using OER course material achieve the same or better learning outcomes as with commercial course materials.

In a 2022 survey of Oregon State University students, 61% of them didn’t purchase at least one textbook because of its high cost. By utilizing low ($40 or less) and no cost resources like OERs, you can have a huge impact on our students. For example, instead of deciding between food and rent or buying a textbook, students will have immediate access, which is significant in a 10-week term, to the texts for their class. This often leads to better performance in their classes because they have access to their textbook and aren’t trying to “get by” without it. Students can also take the amount of credits they wish to stay on track with their degree completion goals because the textbooks are now not a concern as far as affordability goes.

Where do I start?

Oregon State University has a growing collection of open, free to use textbooks across several disciplines. Check out the Oregon State University OER Commons and see if there’s a resource you could utilize. If you don’t find what you were looking for there, so many more resources exist, start with looking at the OER Commons main site. But wait, there’s more!

In addition to our own OER commons, there is a great list of other places to search for Open Educational Resources for your class. Oregon State University has a curated collection of trainings, tutorials, and webinars if you’d like to dive deeper into the world of OER. If you’re needing help navigating or just feel overwhelmed with all of the options, feel free to contact our OER unit for a consultation.

What is OER Week?

Open Education Week is an annual celebration that raises awareness about OERs. In past years, there have been success stories shared, tools highlighted, and how to get involved in adopting or adapting OERs for use in classes.

Keep an eye out for more details about Oregon State University’s activities during Oregon State University’s Open Ed Week for 2026 happening March 2-6, 2026. Whether you’re a faculty member curious about open textbooks or a student interested in more affordable learning materials, there will be plenty of ways to participate and learn more.

Special Edition: Guest Blog by Assistant Professor of Practice (Urban Forestry), Jennifer Killian

When I was asked to create a new course for Oregon State University’s Ecampus program, my first reaction was a mix of sheer excitement… and, well, a little terror. I’ve built workshops, presentations, and even all-day trainings, but assembling ten weeks of graduate-level content from scratch? That felt like wandering through a haunted house to me. Dark, empty, and full of unknowns. Adding to the surrealness, I realized that thirteen years ago, I was a graduate student here, taking several Ecampus courses myself including an early version of the very class I would now be teaching. The idea that I could bring my professional experience back to this institution and shape this course? Thrilling, humbling… and a yes, definitely a little spooky.

The course, FES 454/554: Forestry in the Wildland-Urban Interface, explores the complex challenges of managing forests where communities and wildlands meet. Students dive into forest health, urban forestry, land-use planning, wildfire, and natural resource management through social, ecological, economic, and political lenses. It’s a “slash course,” meaning both undergraduates and graduate students can enroll so I knew the content needed to speak to a broad spectrum of learners. And I had to build it all from the ground up.

Enter the magical world of Ecampus Instructional Design. My Instructional Design partner was way more than support. To me, she was a friendly ghost guiding me through every room of this haunted course house. There were moments when I was convinced I had hit a dead-end, only to have a creative solution appear almost instantly. From turning complex assignments into clear, engaging experiences to keeping me on track and motivated, the team transformed my raw ideas into a cohesive, polished course. I honestly cannot say enough about the skill, creativity, and dedication they bring to the table.

One lesson I carried from my own hiking adventures literally proved invaluable during the course build. Years ago, I was struggling up a 14,000-foot peak in Colorado, staring at the distant summit, more than ready to quit. My hiking buddy simply said, “Don’t look at the summit. Pick a rock a few feet ahead and walk to that. Then take a break, and pick another rock.” That became my metaphor for course development. Instead of being paralyzed by the enormity of a ten-week course, I focused on the next “rock.” Some of my rocks included simply finishing the syllabus, creating the first assignment, securing a guest lecture, or finding a key reading. By breaking the work into manageable pieces, the haunted hallways of that blank course shell became far less intimidating and actually surprisingly rewarding.

Another highlight of building this course was connecting students with the people shaping forestry in the field. Reaching out to industry professionals for guest lectures and insights brought this material to life and grounded it in examples. It also reminded me how much real-world perspectives enrich student learning. Two colleagues from my department contributed individual weeks of material, which helped broaden the course and gave students a chance to see the WUI topic through multiple professional lenses. I was grateful for their contributions too! Seeing the course evolve into a bridge between theory and practice was incredibly rewarding and it reinforced a key principle I’d learned over the years through my various roles. That collaboration amplifies impact. Never has this resonated more with me!

For anyone stepping into a course development role for the first time, my advice is simple; Lean on the resources around you. The Ecampus team offers an incredible array of tools, templates, and guidance. Don’t hesitate to ask questions, tap into expertise, and stick to timelines. Above all, remember the “next rock” approach: the mountain is climbed one step at a time. Celebrate small wins along the way because they add up faster than you think.

Looking back, building this course has been a career highlight. From the panic of staring at a totally blank syllabus to the thrill of seeing assignments, discussions, and modules come alive, I’ve learned that teaching online is truly a team sport. The course may be called Forestry in the Wildland-Urban Interface, but what I really learned was how humans, collaboration, and thoughtful design intersect to create something extraordinary. I hope my story encourages other first-time developers to embrace the process, trust their teams, and find joy in the climb. After all, even a haunted course house is easier to navigate when you have friendly ghosts guiding the way and every “next rock” brings you closer to the summit. And as the crisp autumn air settles in and the leaves turn, I’m reminded that even the spookiest, most intimidating challenges can reveal unexpected magic when you face them step-by-step.

Fall Term is just around the corner, bringing with it new opportunities, fresh faces, and the chance to make a lasting impact on your students. Whether they’re logging in for the first time or for their final term, setting a welcoming and engaging tone from day one helps create a foundation for everyone’s success, yours included.

Here are a few ways to kick things off and set the stage for a smooth, successful term:

Start with a warm welcome

Post a welcome announcement and introduce yourself to your students.
Use a warm and welcoming tone in your message to help students feel encouraged, supported, and comfortable as they enter the course.
Personalize it with a photo or short video, it goes a long way in making connections.

Open your course early

If possible, open your course before the official start date. This gives students a chance to explore, order materials, and introduce themselves.
Open modules at least two weeks ahead. Many students juggle full-time jobs, families, and other commitments, so maximum flexibility is appreciated.

Keep communication open

Set up a Q&A discussion forum, and check it regularly. This allows you to answer common questions once and ensures everyone sees the response.
Encourage students to post questions in this forum and let students know when and how they can expect replies.
Be responsive to messages and follow up with students if needed.

Model engagement

Join discussion boards and post regularly. Ask guiding questions, offer feedback, or simply cheer students on, show them you’re present and engaged.
Think about how you’d engage in a face-to-face class and bring that energy to your online space too.

Be accessible

Hold regular office hours or offer flexible scheduling options. Creating the time and space for students to connect with you makes a difference.

Grade consistently and give meaningful feedback

Timely, constructive feedback helps students grow. The effort you put in early pays off in improved work later in the term.

Stay organized

Block out time in your calendar each week for class check-ins and grading. A little planning now can prevent overwhelm and burnout later.

Take care of yourself

Don’t forget to breathe. Support your students by also supporting yourself.
Be kind to yourself and set boundaries to attend to personal commitments, too.

Here’s to a strong, successful Fall Term — you’ve got this!

Wooden sign with the word welcome on it.

“You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” ~ Will Rogers

As Winter Break has begun it’s rapid decent into the start of a new term, it’s time to take a look at how we will welcome our students back to school in the new year. Winter term brings new beginnings for students as their papers now contain the date 2024. Maybe they’ve made resolutions to do homework on time, or read every last page you request, or just be more present, whatever it is, that first message or impression from you in the new term sets the tone for the class. I’m sure that everyone wants to start a class off on a positive note, so let’s look at 5 ways you can create an informational, welcoming, and inclusive message to start the term/semester off right.

Welcoming tone
Talk about your class
Offer support (and remind them to review the syllabus!)
How to get started
Inspire them

Create a Welcoming Tone

I don’t know about you but when I think back to the professors and teachers that I enjoyed learning from, I remember who they were and how they communicated with the class. They weren’t just an educated, knowledgable, and smart person, they were personable too. Empathy for their students, calling out the fact that we all have a bad day from time to time or might have just missed a deadline made it not seem daunting if we had to come “begging” for an extension. It didn’t seem like begging, it was known and called out that it could happen. Give your students the ease as you recognize them as people and not just a name on a roster.

Talk About the Class

Just think, a brand new set of classes, so many new syllabi to read and materials to devour. Hype your class up by talking about exciting topics, real world applications, and maybe mention an assignment or two that they’ll be working on.

Offer Support

We know that each of our students begins our class with a different set of circumstances on the other side of that screen. With that in mind, including a reference to support for these students can be helpful in letting them know the resources are there and it’s ok to use them. Mention your syllabus, the getting started or introduction module, and make sure they know resources are listed and available in all of those places and not only for your class but for all those other things that life tosses their way.

How to Get Started

So much information is available at the start of a new term. Sometimes it’s hard to know where to start! Wait, what happens when it’s before the term starts? Can we help our students prepare for their classes ahead of time and maybe ease their mind a little bit? How about a Canvas email to your students that introduces them before the term starts to their upcoming class. You could include information about if the class is published already, even if it’s just the welcome page and what OSU Ecampus calls the “Start Here” module that includes information about the class (syllabus) and resources that they have access to as Ecampus students. In that same email, you can help them to figure out where they should start. By telling them directly, and maybe even providing a link, you can give them the information to get started with less anxiety as they know they’re starting where you think they should.

Inspire them

Your excitement about working with them often evokes excitement and positive anticipation of a great class. Share with them a quote or why you love this topic and maybe give them an interesting fact that can pique their curiosity. The point here is to get them inspired and excited to learn.

Example

Dear Students,

Welcome to QLT 123: Introduction to Quilting! My name is Professor Seam and I’ll be your instructor for this online course. We are going to learn so much this term, the first three months of quilting are simply mind-blowing as you move from not knowing how to start to drafting a mockup of one you’d like to make, and finishing your first quilt! We’ll explore the basics, you’ll have opportunities to show off your success and funny failures (because guess what, they happen!) and in the end, you’ll get to showcase all of your hard work in your finished quilt. Guess what? There are no textbooks for this class! Instead, you get order in some fun fabric (but not yet!) Hop into our Canvas site and take a look at the syllabus, find resources for support if you are in need, introduce yourself in the first discussion board and take a look at what’s in the first module. We’ll start next week when the term begins so get ready to sew the seams of creativity because you’ve just started the most sew-perb quilting class and I can’t wait to embark on this journey with you.
-Professor Seam

Share out!

Got a great welcome message? Share with us in the comments!

Each year, the Oregon State University Ecampus Research Unit funds projects, up to $20,000 each, to support the research, development and scholarship efforts of faculty and/or departments in the area of online education through the OSU Ecampus Research Fellows program.

This program aims to:

Fund research that is actionable and impacts student online learning
Provide resources and support for research leading to external grant applications
Promote effective assessment of online learning
Encourage the development of a robust research pipeline on online teaching and learning at Oregon State

Fellows program applications are due Nov. 1 each year. If you are interested in submitting an application, reach out to Naomi Aguiar, the OSU Ecampus assistant director of research. Research Unit staff are available to help you design a quality research project and maximize your potential for funding.

Many Oregon State colleagues have had transformative experiences in this program. A Fellows study funded in 2020 highlights the ways in which these projects have advanced research in online/hybrid education, as well as Fellows’ programs of research.

Fellows program highlight

Funding recipients expand the inclusivity mindset of computer science students

Lara Letaw, an experienced online instructor and lead researcher from Oregon State’s School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, partnered with Heather Garcia, an OSU Ecampus inclusive instructional designer on a research study called “Impacting the Inclusivity Mindset of Online Computer Science Students.”

Together with their team, Letaw and Garcia implemented an intervention that was designed to improve feelings of gender inclusivity among online computer science students and to train these students to develop more gender-inclusive software applications.

In this intervention, online computer science students experienced new curriculum developed by Letaw and Garcia’s team. The curriculum was based on GenderMag, a software inspection method for identifying and correcting gender biases in software. Curriculum for teaching GenderMag concepts can be found on the GenderMag Teach website. Students completed a set of assignments and, if they chose to participate in the research study, questionnaires about inclusivity climate, both in the course and in the computer science major. Students’ software design work was also evaluated for the use of gender-inclusive principles.

The image below shows examples of the cognitive facet values people (e.g., Letaw and Garcia) bring to their use of software, shown across the spectra of GenderMag facets (information processing style, learning style, motivations, attitude toward risk, and computer self-efficacy).

examples of the cognitive facet values people (e.g., Letaw and Garcia) bring to their use of software, shown across the spectra of GenderMag facets (information processing style, learning style, motivations, attitude toward risk, and computer self-efficacy).

Computer science students in the Ecampus courses Letaw and Garcia modified learned about their own cognitive styles and those of their teammates. They also built software that supports the cognitive diversity of software users. One student reflected, “Identifying my facet values was tremendously helpful [for articulating what had] been abstract… I feel much more confident.”

The results of their study showed that, overall, students felt included by the GenderMag curriculum (nobody felt excluded by it), it increased their interest in computer science, and it had positive effects on their team dynamics and self-acceptance. Students who completed the GenderMag intervention were also more effective in developing gender-inclusive software designs, and they reported greater recognition and respect for the diversity of software users.

The image below highlights what students considered when designing a software user interface before (left) and after (right) learning GenderMag concepts. As one student put it, “Now when I think of users using a piece of software I don’t picture them … just jumping in and tinkering … I am more aware that there are [people whose] interests in using a software … might not align with mine.”

As a result of this project, Letaw and Garcia published a paper in the ACM’s International Computing Education Research conference proceedings in 2021. This project contributed to a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant awarded to Oregon State’s Margaret Burnett, Letaw, and Kean University. With this funding from the NSF, they will partner on a project entitled, “Embedding Equitable Design through Undergraduate Computing Curricula.”

This Fellows project has also provided research opportunities for two female Ecampus computer science students (Rosalinda Garcia and Aishwarya Vellanki), a group that is typically underrepresented in STEM fields. Rosalinda Garcia successfully defended her honors thesis with these data in the spring of 2021, and Vellanki is currently working on her own.

Join the Ecampus Research Fellows Program

Learn more about the Fellows Program and what materials are needed to prepare your proposal.

When looking at the name Serverless, it may seem obvious what Serverless is; the lack of a server for an application. The name is actually quite deceiving, as Serverless applications still require servers to perform their duties. Serverless actually refers to a collection of managed cloud services that help to run our applications including storage, databases, functions, back and forth data transfer and more. With serverless, a cloud provider like Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud or Microsoft Azure handle all the configuration, provisioning and management of the server instead of the developer. In simple terms, this means organizations adopting a serverless architecture will be saving a lot of time and money by removing the need to worry about setting up and managing servers.

The Platform Development Team (part of the multimedia group at Oregon State University Ecampus) builds and maintains a number of platforms that leverage Serverless. Web Platforms are pieces of software that facilitate the creation and consumption of content or activities at scale. By using Serverless, our team has experienced a huge decrease in time needed to develop and deploy new platforms and applications. Without the need for our team to configure and manage servers we can handle the setup of our backend for new applications more quickly and efficiently. Any support needed for a dedicated server has also completely disappeared, that is now all handled by the cloud provider. Another huge money saver for our team has been the lack of need for a dedicated server (a server dedicated to you, not shared with anyone else). In the past when using a dedicated server, you would have to pay for both the server, in addition to any resources dedicated to that server, these costs continue to occur even when the server is not in use. With Serverless, you simply pay for what you use, this means when our applications are not receiving requests we are not being charged. When a serverless architecture is performing jobs, the costs accrued are very small, each job costing less than a fraction of a penny. The combination of both an increase in our speed to produce new applications and the lower price tag of using Serverless to handle tasks has allowed our team to undoubtedly save on development costs and provide software to users in a timelier manner.

Apart from its cost benefits, there are also many other positives to using a serverless architecture. These include security, scalability and accessibility. Because the server is no longer managed by the developer, many of the security aspects for applications that a developer would have had to manage in the past are handled by the cloud provider. There are still many security concerns a developer has to consider and handle outside of what the cloud provider handles, but Serverless helps reduce the list of concerns for the developer. Scalability is also a huge plus. As an application gets more popular or starts receiving more requests, Serverless allows scaling to handle those requests. With a dedicated server you would need to manually increase resources. Often when increasing the resources for a dedicated server there will likely be a good portion of those resources going to waste (wasted resources means wasted money), especially as the application receives different levels of traffic at different times. With Serverless, there is no need to worry about wasting resources because it only uses what is needed and scales to the amount of traffic an application is receiving. One of the main goals of our team is to make everything that we develop fully accessible. Serverless helps to us achieve this goal by being offering the ability to deliver content from different regions all over the world, rather than being dependent on a delivering all content from dedicated server located in Oregon. This allows students to more easily access our content and at higher speeds.

Ecampus’ Platform Development Team has seen so many benefits from using the serverless architecture over a dedicated server that it is now used in almost everything that we do. Every single one of our platforms including NES (our platform designed to handle long form content), SLIDE (our platform designed to add interactivity to slideshows), VDL (our platform designed to add interactivity to videos) and the upcoming interactive labs platform all have fully adopted a serverless architecture, which has helped us in producing interactive content for Ecampus’ courses in lightning fast speeds. We can also now utilize the time we have saved to improve our platforms and the overall interactive content that is used in Ecampus’ courses. In summary, Serverless has not only saved our team time and money but also has allowed us to offer better learning experiences to students taking Ecampus’ courses.

Author – David Jansen

Over the last several years, research on online education has been growing rapidly. There has been an increased demand for quality research online teaching and learning. This demand now seems more urgent as teaching modalities are changing due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since 2016, the Ecampus Research Unit has been funding OSU faculty-led research on online and hybrid education through the Ecampus Research Fellows Program. The goals of the program are the following:

To fund research that is actionable and that impacts students’ learning online;
To provide the resources and support to “seed” pilot research leading to external grant applications;
To promote effective assessment of online learning at the course and program-levels at OSU;
To encourage the development of a robust research pipeline on online teaching and learning at OSU.

Ecampus Research Fellows are funded for one year to engage in an independent research project on a topic related to online teaching and learning. Fellows may apply for up to $20,000 to support their research project. Up to 5 projects are funded each year. The program follows a cohort model in which fellows meet on a quarterly basis as a group to discuss their projects and receive support from the Research Unit. Each fellow completes an Institutional Review Board (IRB)-approved independent research project, and they are required to write a white paper based on their project results. The program’s white papers are published by the Ecampus Research Unit.

Actionable research impacting online education

In the past five years, the program has funded 24 projects with 34 faculty from across the university. The funded research has been conducted in anthropology, biology, chemistry, education, engineering, geography, mathematics, philosophy, physics, psychology public health, rangeland science, sociology, statistics and veterinary medicine. The faculty have benefitted from having dedicated time and resources to undertake these research projects. Their fellows’ projects are significant for their own research pipelines, and their findings are valuable Ecampus as we continue to innovate in our development of online courses. An example is geography instructor, Damien Hommel’s project, which led to a larger effort toward expanding experiential education for Ecampus courses beyond his discipline. Other fellows’ projects are providing valuable information about peer influence, inclusive teaching, hybrid laboratories, video segmentation, online research platforms, and more.

Becoming a research fellow

Are you an OSU faculty member interested in doing research on online education in your discipline? Previous experience with classroom-based or human subjects research is not a requirement. The Ecampus Research Unit is available to support you with your application and the research design process. We will be accepting our 6^th cohort in 2021. The application is available now and is due on November 1^st. Funded projects will be notified by December 1^st.

If you have questions about the program contact Mary Ellen Dello Stritto (maryellen.dellostritto@oregonstate.edu), the director of research for OSU Ecampus. Additionally, attend an information session on Tuesday, September 29, 2020 at 1p.m. or Friday, October 2, 2020 at 11a.m. To register for one of these information sessions email: maryellen.dellostritto@oregonstate.edu.

About the Oregon State University Ecampus Research Unit

The Oregon State University Ecampus Research Unit responds to and forecasts the needs and challenges of the online education field through conducting original research; fostering strategic collaborations; and creating evidence-based resources and tools that contribute to effective online teaching, learning and program administration. The OSU Ecampus Research Unit is part of Oregon State Ecampus, the university’s top-ranked online education provider. Learn more at ecampus.oregonstate.edu/research.

A student persona is a summary of a specific type of student. This persona represents archetypes NOT stereotypes of a broader student segment or group. A student persona summarizes who the student users are and why they are using the learning system, as well as what behaviors, assumptions, and expectations determine their view of the learning system.

Why Create Student Personas?

There are many reasons why instructors and instructional designers and developers create and use student personas, such as:

To represent the major needs of the key student user groups.
To provide a reliable and accurate representation of your targeted student audience.
To enable you to focus on a manageable and memorable group of students.
To help you create different designs for different kinds of students and to tailor the design to meet the needs of the most important student user groups.
To inform on the functionality of the learning system, uncover gaps in instructional design and development, or highlight new ways to deliver learning.

What Makes Up a Student Persona?

Like all personas, student personas generally include several key pieces of information, which are outlined on usability.gov

Here is an example of a student persona that I created for an online Intro to Permaculture MOOC that includes the essential elements of a persona.

Student Persona Example Description of the user research conducted to create the student persona:

Student user research was conducted through an online Welcome survey that was embedded in the online course. As in all persona creations, user research should be conducted and the collected data should be used in order to ensure accurate representations of your users. Student user research can be conducted online or face-to-face through student surveys, interviews, or observations.

Student Persona Example (Enlarged View)

How Are Student Personas Used?

More than one student persona (3-5 student personas) should be used for an instructional development project from the analysis phase to the design, development, implementation and evaluation. As such, these student personas can be used in numerous ways.

Smashing Magazine, A Closer Look at Personas – What They Are and How They Work, discusses some of the general uses of personas:

Build empathy
Develop focus
Communicate and form consensus
Make and defend decisions
Measure effectiveness

Resources

While there is no one way to create and use a persona, there are plenty of examples, free templates, and instructional videos and readings available to help you get started to create personas of the students that you serve and to use them in your instructional developments. These resources are available through the following links.

Examples

Tobi Day
Rita

Templates

Fake Crow Free Persona Template
Persona Core Poster Template | PDF

Video

How to Create UX Personas (3:01)
(Note: This video talks about service design for customers, but for student personas, you will want to keep in mind that the students and learners are the customers)

Readings

Personas by usability.gov
A Closer Look at Personas – What They Are and How They Work by Smashing Magazine

This is a re-publish of a prior blog post that is quite popular and we wanted to bring it to the top of the blog again. Thank you to our original author: Rebecca Pietrowski

Connecting with our students is essential, but how do we do it? Well, I guess it depends on what you mean by connected. Zoom works to see one another on a screen, you can attend activities on campus and possibly see some of your students, or we can take a deeper look into what connected means. When I think of education, connecting could be students to each other, students to the material, the material to real life, you to the student, etc. I’ll focus on the last one here: You to the student.

Think back to a time when you were in school and you had a “favorite” teacher or professor. What was it about them that made them your favorite? Did they open up their classroom at lunch to play cards with students? Did they give you a “good luck” note for a sporting event? Maybe they came to your choir concert, attended a theater production you were in, or maybe they made themselves available in a time of need. Whatever it is, that’s what connects you. What made them your favorite is because of the connection that you formed.

Effective connection is:

Being available
Caring (and showing it)
Treating the student with respect
Being a trustworthy confidant
Showing belief in students
Acting warm and welcoming
Showing compassion
Being on the student’s side
Exuding love for teaching
Showing true interest in students
Being a great listener
Accepting every student

For me, there were lots of teachers I liked and many I’d say were “favorites” but looking back, one made that huge impression and connection. How? By giving me a cut up straw on a string. Yes, you read that correctly, a cut up straw on a string. That teacher listened to what I was saying when she asked a question about how a track meet went. If it was not so good of a meet, I’d reply “I sucked from a big straw.” When it came time for an important meet that year, I got a good luck card with a straw I couldn’t suck from. That was over 20 years ago and I still have that cut up straw. Now that’s a connection!

Connection Do’s and Don’ts.

Be available
Care (for real!)
Treat students with respect
Be a trustworthy confidant
Show belief in students
Be warm and welcoming
Show compassion
Be on the student’s side
Exude love for teaching
Show true interest in students
Be a great listener
Demonstrate acceptance

DON’T

Try too hard to be liked
Gossip about students
Fail to set boundaries
Fail to set high expectations
Be unable to say no
Be sarcastic
Pamper students
Fail to follow through
Pretend to care

Run through the lists and think of a way you can make the do’s happen and ways you can keep the don’ts from happening. Was there a specific example from your examples that really stood out? Use that to help guide you in the other examples. Perhaps you remember a time where you failed to set high expectations, what happened? Reflect on why you thought you had (or know you didn’t) and what you’d like to do differently next time.

Want to know more? Read “You’ve Gotta Connect: Building Relationships That Lead to Engaged Students, Productive Classrooms, and Higher Achievement” by James Alan Sturtevant, 2014