Many online learners find the online environment new and disorienting. When they had a question in their face-to-face class, they simply raised their hand or talk to the trainer after class.

In the online environment, you’ll have to create spaces for formative feedback and conversation to create dialogue between you and your online learners to enhance the online learning process.

Unfortunately, most trainers who are still adapting to the new realities of virtual training don’t pursue their online learners in this manner. They expect that learners will contact them with questions.

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Remember, your students are disoriented and they need some cues. In addition, they are probably not used to taking such an active role in the course. So, you’ll have to invite them to interact and you will have to make this invitation several times too, here are some ways to do this:

• The easiest thing you can do is to simply send out an email to let them know you’re available to help them. End your email with “Simply reply to this email if you have any questions.”

• If you have certain hours and are open to taking phone calls, let them know when you are available that week. Be sure to post your phone number and available hours in the course site or in an email.

• If you receive a particularly good question from a student, post it as a course-wide email or put it in an assignment FAQ page.

• Set up an all class paper discussion forum where students post their questions about the assignment. They might need help finding credible sources, or it could be that they are having a difficult time understanding a particular concept.

Whatever strategies you choose, they key is to invite them multiple times, this can help create a culture of dialogue in your course and has significant payoff to the overall learning experience.