Intervention messages

Description

It is important to contact students when their "observed behaviors" within the course indicate cause for concern (e.g., disengaged or at-risk of not succeeding). In addition to the obvious behavior of not submitting assignments, checking the Course Management System's (CMS) "Student Tracking" tool frequently (sorting by last access) allows the instructor to identify students who have not logged in to the CMS within a specified time period (e.g., more than one week). Monitoring the grade book at key intervals (e.g., one-quarter of the way through the course or at mid-term) allows the instructor to identify students whose grade average places them at risk of not succeeding in the course (e.g., less than a C average). As Cornell and Martin (1997) conclude about similar behaviors, "these are signs that something is amiss with the student and his or her progress through the class."

Methods of contacting students should align with the cause for instructor intervention. For instance, sending a Course Email message to a disengaged student is less productive than sending a message to that student's "real" email address. Email messages (whether within CMS or external) have the advantage of being easily retrievable for documentation purposes. However, a telephone call from the instructor may make more of an impact on the student. Depending on the severity of the situation (and the instructor's time/inclination) it may be advisable to schedule a one-on-one synchronous consultation with the student (via telephone, Skype, instant messaging, etc.) to discuss course expectations, current student strategies, and necessary changes in behavior. Of course, these proposed tactics presuppose that the instructor has solicited personal contact information at the beginning of the term and is willing to intervene with the student as soon as possible (Cornell and Martin, 1997).

Link to example artifact(s)

External email message sent during first week of term to a student who had not logged in to the course based upon "Student Tracking"

Link to scholarly reference(s)

Cornell, R. and Martin, B.L. (1997). The role of motivation in web-based instruction. In B. Khan (Ed.), Web-based instruction (pp. 95-96). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications.

Citation

To cite this entry, please use the APA-based auto-generated citation below, or consult your preferred style guide.

Kelvin Thompson (2011). Intervention messages. In K. Thompson and B. Chen (Eds.), Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository. Orlando, FL: University of Central Florida Center for Distributed Learning. Retrieved June 20, 2013 from http://topr.online.ucf.edu/index.php?title=Intervention_messages&oldid=2156