How to improve faculty-student relations and enrollment in online classes

On Dec. 7, 2021, Johns Hopkins University Press will publish Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport between Teachers and Students by Dr. Rebecca Glazier, an associate professor of political science in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. The book addresses how faculty can improve the online teaching environment and their rapport with their students. Grounded in 12 years of the author’s teaching experience, original research, and academic literature, the book explains how simple online pedagogical techniques can improve retention and enrollment. These techniques include proactively reaching out through personalized check-in emails, creating opportunities for human connection before courses even begin through a short welcome survey, communicating faculty investment in students’ success by providing individualized and meaningful assignment feedback, hosting non-content-based discussion threads where students and faculty can get to know one other, and responding to students’ questions with positivity and encouragement (and occasionally also cute animal pictures). Schools can receive a discount for bulk-ordering the book using  the JHUP, Bulk order form. Preview some of the book’s arguments in Glazier’s EdTalk below.