Establishing and maintaining regular effective contact is an important aspect of delivering an online and hybrid-blended course. It is not only a Middle States and New York State requirement, but is also a practice that encourages and facilitates student-centered instruction and increases student learning outcomes.
Types of Regular Effective Contact
Interaction in the distance education classroom takes place in three ways:
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- Course announcements
- Internal messaging in Moodle
- Personalized feedback through MSMC email or Moodle gradebook
- Discussion forums
- Chat feature in Moodle
- Zoom (MSMC’s integrated synchronous tool in Moodle)
- Phone calls, Skype sessions
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- Topics, Modules or Units in Moodle
- Lectures (audio and video)
- Podcasts/webinars/screencasts
- Discussion forums
- PowerPoints
- Websites, YouTube videos, streaming films
- eTexts and journal articles from MSMC Library
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- Internal messaging in Moodle
- Discussion boards
- “Ask the Class a Question” or “Course Q&A Forum” or other informal discussion forum where students can talk about class related and non-class related topics
- Chat feature in Moodle
- MSMC email exchanges
- Collaborative projects through Web 2.0 tools and technologies, and through Moodle
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Source: Faculty Reference Manual for Online and Distance Education