In today’s world, where technology has made communication instantaneous, we often equate response times from online instructors and school administration as caring. If we contact an education organization to enquire about a course or program and we don’t hear back for several days – it deeply affects our perception of that organization and also the level of support we can expect to receive.
We also know that delayed or lengthy response times from instructors are a major contributing factor to incomplete courses and high learner attrition rates. And it’s not just our response times to questions that are crucial; it’s a learner’s expectation of our response time that often determines their overall satisfaction with their experience in an online course.
Unlike a face-to-face classroom where we regularly see and have direct access to a teacher or professor to ask questions, in an online environment, learners are trying to complete their coursework for the most part independently. And especially in courses that involve cumulative learning like math, if a learner hits a major obstacle, they often can’t move forward in the course until they receive assistance. If they don’t receive support for several days, they can completely lose their motivation and engagement to continue for an extended period of time.
Conversely, teachers for online courses often receive a volume of correspondence from students at key times, all at once, during the courses and they can’t be on duty 24/7 to respond.
So What’s the Key to Response Time Success?
- Aim to Get Back to Students Within One Business Day – It’s important for learners to know they can count on us to respond to their questions in a timely manner. This doesn’t necessarily mean responding within one hour of a posted question or email, especially if it’s received at the end of the day but for my teachers, same day or 1 business day was the sweet spot.
- Set Clear Expectations for Response Times Right From the Beginning – For example, if you’re only available to respond to emails and posts Monday to Friday, then students need to be aware of this so they aren’t stressing during the weekend waiting to hear from us. Learners often don’t automatically assume that online teachers follow the same schedule as their teachers in their bricks and mortar school.
- Create an Auto-Responder – I often recommend teachers set up an auto-responder confirming they’ve received a student’s question and reminding them of office hours (because they will forget). This confirms for a student that a) the email went through and b) when exactly you’ll get back to them.
- Make Sure to Stick to the Scheduling Boundaries You’ve Created – If you start responding to weekend emails, then the expectation is going to develop that you are available on weekends. And if you do happen to be working quietly on a weekend to catch up, you can schedule your email responses and posts to delay sending until first thing Monday morning. Email scheduling tools are a must if you are an online teacher
- Encourage students to Post Questions in the Discussion Forums -This encourages collaboration and engagement and allows them to also learn from their peers’ questions and your previous responses. This will greatly reduce email workload.
So, hopefully, this video has your learning team thinking about different ways you can reduce school and instructor response times for your learners because, in our minds, in the automated world of today, responses = caring.
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