Are You For Real? > James Fleming

The need for online instructors to establish firm, clear and dynamic classroom personalities became very clear for me last term. During the first seminar conversation in one of my composition classes, a student asked me if I was actually a real person. I said that yes, of course I was. My student told me that she had assumed that her instructors were computer programs and not “real” people. Another student explained that he assumed his instructors were all real, but that our assignment and discussion question responses and seminar lectures were “preset” or “canned.” I quickly explained that I was, indeed, a real person and a trained and educated expert in my subject field, and that my comments and postings were my own work. After I finished, yet another student contacted me on AIM and asked if all of her online instructors here at Kaplan were “real professors.” I assured her that we all are indeed “real” professors.

These conversations reminded me of the need for online instructors to make sure to remind our students that we are indeed real people. While the assumption of some of our students that we are simply computer programs, or that we’re providing them with pre-established lectures and seminar discussion points, might offend us, we need to consider this matter from the perspective of our students. Many of our students are only connected to their classes through the Internet. They cannot see us or, save for audio seminars, even hear us. They are being asked, in essence, to trust us to teach them and evaluate them based entirely off what they see written about us or by us on a screen. It is our job, then, to earn their trust and demonstrate to them that we are real people who have an invested interest in their learning and personal and professional development.

There are some simple steps we can follow in order to establish for our students that we are, indeed, “real” instructors. First, offering our students personalized critiques of their work that address them directly and make mention to what they have written can go a long way to proving to our students that we care about their work and success. Second, providing detailed faculty biographies and sharing anecdotes and examples taken from our lives and experiences can serve to help establish that we are, indeed, real people who have knowledge to share. Third, making ourselves available during the half hour before seminar or during office hours and using this time not only to address questions and concerns, but also engage in casual conversation or “small talk” can help provide students with a sense of being part of an academic community and, also, serve to reinforce that we are indeed all real people who are available to provide them with support and education.

[This article was originally published in our June, 2009 issue.]