The other day I was asked what is the best way to instruct and stay organized with continuous intake, asynchronous courses?

First of all, let’s break that down:

• Continuous intake: a course that is self-paced where enrollments are ongoing. Students start when they register, and they are given their own completion deadline (or the course does not require completion within a deadline). This is an alternative to the more traditional cohort-based courses.
• Asynchronous: a course that is done online, but not in real time. Basically, this allows students (and instructors) to make their own hours and do their course work in their pajamas if they wish! There are no scheduled meetings, or face to face elements. All of the course work (and marking) is done and submitted at any time.

Asynchronous, continuous intake courses can be intimidating for some but honestly, they are not that hard to manage. There are three rules of thumb to keep in mind when juggling this type of course and students:

1. Enlist your students as partners

The continuous intake means that students tend to be in different places throughout the course, at different times. The upside of that is you don’t end up with crazy peaks and valleys, where you’re marking like mad or answering a tonne of questions all at once, but then later, just sitting on your hands. It all tends to even out and you’re mostly comfortably busy. The downside is that it is all but impossible to stay ahead of your students and make sure that all of the links are working properly in the course, by the time they get to them (link URLs change CONSTANTLY). You have no other option other than to let that go, and just make peace with it. I usually tell students up front that I can’t possibly find broken links before they do, since they are all over the course at any given time, and I ask them to please let me know if and when they find them, so I can clean them up right away. I usually do that pretty fast, and email them back with the new link, so they are less inconvenienced, and also rewarded for reaching out. Mostly they worry that they are “bugging me” but I remind them that they are not, in fact they are partnering with me by making sure other people have the benefit of that link, so please do let me know.

2. Keep track of everything.

The other challenge you may face is remembering who is where in the course at any given time, and what they’ve done. I keep spreadsheets and fill them in often. Things like student numbers, preferred contact details, when they started, when they have to be done, assignments completed (list all of the assignments in columns and just put a check mark when they’ve been marked for each student), as well as a notes column where you can remind yourself about pertinent details you want to remember about each student. Things like vacations, or challenges they are currently facing etc. are important to keep track of. The human element is what can be missed in an asynchronous course, so do what you can to keep those pieces close at hand for each of your students.

3. FEEDBACK IS KING!

When you’re not teaching in a class where you have face to face time, or even synchronously where at least you have screen time, your students can potentially feel a bit like a number. That’s where you risk losing them. Spend time providing lots of qualitative feedback so they know that you’re there, you’re reading what they send you, and you care about their success. Some instructors keep a matrix of common feedback that they’ve given so it’s easier to provide it again to another student without having to retype (you’ll find you end up saying so many similar things), but because I’m such a big proponent of the human element, I’d always end up modifying it so much anyway, that I may as well just retype it. I also save my feedback for every assignment – for years! Occasionally a student will misplace it or ask for it down the road, but mostly it helps when I THINK I see a similar challenge to something they’ve submitted before but am not sure. I can check back in my feedback for previous assignments and connect my feedback to the current submission. Students like knowing that you remember them, and that you SEE them. That’s the human element that I work so hard to bring into my online courses. Do what works for you, but your feedback is a good place to create some organizational short cuts.

To ensure your success as an online instructor in an asynchronous, continuous intake course, remember to enlist the help of your students, keep track of important details that reflect who they are, not just what they’re doing, and find ways to say as much as you can about their submissions. The grades may matter when it comes to a course mark, but what you say matters more in terms of their success, and their learning. After all, aren’t we here for the learning?