As a teacher, you need to understand your students' needs and expectations. Talk to them about this at the beginning of a course. Some questions could be

  • life situation
  • prior knowledge
  • language skills
  • study experience
  • work experience
  • goals of studying
    • in the short term?
    • in the long term?
  • need for targeted pedagogical support.

This will help you design your teaching in a way that supports students' learning and chances of completing the course.

Understanding and getting to know your students before the course

Students studying at a distance include those who have studied before but quite a long time ago, or completely different types of education, but also those who are not used to studying. This means that, as a teacher, you need to take care to remove as many barriers as possible in order for the studies to work well.

These barriers can be related to many different aspects, such as unfamiliarity with how courses are organized and where to find information, language difficulties, unfamiliarity with working with digital tools, and disabilities.

To support your students, we suggest you start from what is called Universal Design for Learning. The idea is to make the learning environment as accessible as possible for all students.

Below are tips for further reading and listening on how you can do this:

By reflecting on and getting to know your current student group when planning your course, you can choose communication paths and learning activities that suit them. One way to do this is to use personas, and you can use the personas below as inspiration.

Nathalie graduated from a college preparatory high school in June and starts her studies at the university the same year. She is single and moves to Jönköping for her studies, as she wants to take part in student life. Her parents have both studied at university and have helped her prepare for potential new challenges that student life may bring.

Tarek comes from a non-EU country and has moved to Jönköping because the bachelor's program he has chosen is not available in his home country. He is highly motivated and wants to make the most of his studies but finds the Swedish way of teaching a bit confusing and different from what he is used to.

Jonas is the first in his family and among his friends to study at university. He has a more vocational high school diploma with courses that qualify him for the bachelor's program of his choice. He is 23 years old and lives with his girlfriend 20 miles from Jönköping and has decided to commute to his studies.

Lisa is a 40-year-old woman who lives in a villa with her family (husband and two active, younger children). Lisa has a bachelor's degree and has worked in her profession for 15 years. Now, she has decided to combine her work with studying on a Master's program given remotely and with a 50% study rate. She struggles to balance work, studies and family life.

Nelly is a Master student in an online program. She still lives in her home country (6 hours time difference to Sweden) but studies at Jönköping University. She has a Bachelor's degree from a recognized university, but it is more professional and applied than academic. Now she combines 50% studies with work.

Anders has no previous higher education and has worked in the same industry for more than 20 years. He has now lost his job at the age of 47 and decided to start a full-time education towards a new career in a new profession.

Ann-Kristin is 65+, after her retirement she decided to use some of her extra time for personal development by attending some elective courses based on her own interest.

John has a neuro-psychiatric disability and has been struggling with dyslexia since he started primary school. The Educational Support Coordinator has authorized the support of a mentor and alternative forms of examination for him.

Your relationship as a teacher with students during the course

In asynchronous and hybrid teaching, you as a teacher need to think about building in what we take for granted when we meet face-to-face on campus. The social relationship with you as a teacher is easier to organize e.g. by stopping in the classroom to ask a question in connection with teaching or through informal conversations.

To create this opportunity for online students to build a social relationship with you as a teacher, you can, for example, use open zoom rooms, drop-in hours or open forums (e.g. a class chat). You simply need to be clear about how you can be reached by your students.

As a teacher, to be able to monitor how your students are doing and how they are progressing with their studies, you can use different ways to 'see' your students! The human relationship is important. Feel free to provide the opportunity to respond both anonymously and non-anonymously.

You can use for example:

  • mood checks (Microsoft's Reflect; Wooclap etc. ) to capture mental wellbeing, stress, balance
  • exit tickets - before and after lessons depending on what you want to know about
  • continuous evaluation of the course
  • emails
  • posters offering the possibility to comment.

It is important that students feel that there is someone who cares, believes in them, has high expectations and gives them opportunities to reach the goal in their own way. This way of working also provides you with a basis for changing your teaching in the long term.

Students' relationship with each other - Networking, fellowship and community

In campus education, a certain group affiliation is automatically created. In flexible teaching, however, you need to work actively to enable this.

On the one hand, you need to enable meetings across borders, for example by mixing groups in collaboration and interaction. On the other hand, you need to create a space for the open, informal discussion that otherwise takes place in the classroom. This conversation provides good opportunities for informal learning and offers a convenient opportunity to ask questions to course participants.

Through such a space, for example in Teams, all students in the group have access and are included. This is not always the case when commercial platforms are used. A wise choice of platform also increases information and IT security for students.

However, it is important that you as a teacher work in and nurture this space. Without the teacher's care, especially at the beginning of the course, the space easily loses relevance for the students. A simple way to work in the space is to talk about it and use it from time to time for different tasks. This does not have to involve a lot of work for you as a teacher.

A common space that includes everyone in the course contributes to a social context that is particularly important to create in flexible teaching to create participation and a sense of belonging to the group and strengthen motivation. A common place also facilitates the practical work of the studies by providing opportunities to

  • collaborate on shared documents/apps
  • easily making and sharing recordings
  • conducting group work in private groups
  • providing a dynamic discussion forum
  • chatting and conversing privately.

Student engagement

In asynchronous and hybrid learning, it is especially important to work to keep students engaged in their studies. There are many things you can do to support this. Some tips are:

  • Be clear about the aims and objectives of learning activities.
  • Vary the choice of digital tools and type of activity.
  • Break down learning content into smaller segments around 15-20 minutes - Use playlists for recorded material.
  • Use transition breaks between segments to activate students through, for example, learning games/polls/quizzes/response tools.
  • Combine teaching with formative assessment.
  • As a teacher, show continuous interest in student work and learning.