Course Management Tips to Keep Students Engaged:
•	Change your News Flash area on a weekly basis, keep announcements short (under 3 lines).  Date it first, then compose.
•	If you have a longer announcement to make, place the announcement in the Bulletin Board area and use the Newsflash to tell students to look in the Bulletin Board area for a new post.
•	Every time you change your Newsflash, cut/paste the prior Newsflash into a document in the Bulletin Board entitled “Newsflash Archive”
•	Check the Questions Area at the end of each Learning Module every time you log into the course.  Respond to student’s questions within a few days.
•	Check the Bulletin Board area every few days and respond to any question students may post.  
•	Check student’s online office (private) folders to see if a student has submitted a private post.  Respond to the post within a few days.  
•	Have all students filled out their "Meet Your Classmates" profiles? Encourage them to share photos and Internet resources, either in the profile, or in the shared references area.
•	Check to see that students are responding in the appropriate locations. If you see a problem, make an announcement in the Bulletin Board to address the issue.
•	Check for empty student documents created by accident. Your students can't delete documents, so you should delete empty or duplicate documents. In the tutorial, students are instructed to put the words "DELETE THIS" in the title (subject) to let you know they want a document deleted. 
•	Instructors and students should be engaged in the discussion area.  Instructors are expected to have frequent involvement in the discussion area.
•	Create as many possibilities for student interaction as you can. Encouragement rather than nagging is more effective to increase participation.
•	Evaluate written assignments in a timely manner (within 2 weeks) so students get a sense of how they are doing in the course and understand what they need to do differently the next time.
•	BE FLEXIBLE regarding open and closing modules – students are often working professionals with families who are very busy and they may need to work ahead or may fall a bit behind.  
Tips for Class Discussion: 
•	If you have more than one discussion item in a module, indicate the start and end dates in the document title so students will know which discussions are active and the time frame for the discussion.
•	Resist the temptation to respond to every student's response. Otherwise, the discussion may become a series of dialogs between you and each student, rather than among the students. 
•	Instructors should direct the flow of the discussion, this can be done in many ways:
•	Create a response by guiding the discussion, redirect if students get “off track”
•	Create a response by providing an open ended question that takes the discussion down another path or forces the students to gain greater depth
•	Create a response by calling on specific students who have not yet participated in the discussion
•	Create a response that asks a student to clarify a point or to substantiate their position
•	Create a response that asks a student to reassess a response in light of another student’s response
•	Create a response that asks a follow-up question of the group or of an individual student
•	Create a response that draws attention to points that come up and add your two cents 
•	The quickest way for you to grind a discussion to a halt is to step in and summarize or synthesize the discussion. Students will assume that since you are the instructor, a summary caps the discussion. 
•	Online "Discussion" or interaction is not the same as traditional "class participation." Asynchronous interaction between students and with the instructor is a complex instructional interactive process that requires thought, synthesis, analysis, substantiation, critical thinking, etc. In this environment for most courses it is a primary teaching and learning tool. It must be valued accordingly. 
•	Use the Stand-Alone evaluation form to give students private feedback on their participation and interaction in your course discussion. You can also use this form to do a general mid-term evaluation for each student. It is important to evaluate the quality of the contributions in your course discussion and give periodic individual feedback on how they are doing in this type interaction.
Text adopted from: 2003 SLN Faculty Development Guide