While distance learning can present a few challenges to instructors and students alike, it also offers unique opportunities for learning the subject matter as well as improving your students abilities to work with others through distance learning platforms. Use live chats to engage students in the subject, giving students the opportunity to make comments, ask questions and even challenge assumptions.
Develop a project for students to complete, either on their own or working with other students in a group. Provide student-specific instruction via email, phone, video conferencing or through live chats, especially with one or more students. For example, students in a social science class may be asked to conduct research on the reactions of participants completing a survey. Students can then compare their findings and work on a group paper that can be offered to the class as a whole to review. The class can offer questions or comments via live chat or comments can be posted on a platform, like Blackboard.
Most distance learning platforms allows students to develop folders that other students, as well as the course instructor, can review. A folder might contain, for instance, daily journal entries, reflections on topics being covered in the course. For an art class, the folder might also have artwork, while for a writing class it might have writing samples, including poems or short stories. A folder does not necessarily have to be graded, as long as the student adds the required number of submissions to his or her folder during the duration of the course.
Create a page on which you can have your students create a joint sources page. This will be a collection of book resources, journal articles, reliable online content and even television interviews that relate to the subject being studied. However, do not let the students directly load their references, especially Internet links. Instead, they should submit them to you for approval first and you can load them.