One key advantage is that student learning and thinking become more visible and, potentially, more collaborative. While some asynchronous activities like watching recorded mini-lectures and taking online quizzes are done alone, other activities can create a series of dialogues between students or between instructor and students. When replacing an in-class activity with an asynchronous activity, instructors and teaching assistants should consider making use of that time to develop detailed and thoughtful feedback [2]. Remember that quality feedback constitutes contact time in a remote class! It’s quite reasonable to replace synchronous class-time with asynchronous feedback time, when that will best serve your students’ learning. 

Another approach is to flip course activities. Flipping some class activities (lecture, practice quizzes, even discussion) over to asynchronous ‘homework’ time means that instructors can turn erstwhile ‘homework’ into intentional and thoughtful learning activities for synchronous class time. Turning solitary reading and reflection into synchronous, small-group problem solving activities can increase student engagement and learning. Flipping class activities out to asynchronous activities also creates flexibility for students to complete work at their own pace and when it best fits into their schedule. This is especially helpful now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when students’ ability to meet synchronously may be abruptly curtailed for significant periods.

Here are some best practices to consider when planning asynchronous learning: 

• Use asynchronous learning to flip your lectures - Instead of holding class-length Zoom meetings or recording videos of full-length lectures, consider recording several short 5 to 10-minute videos. Students are much more likely to absorb several short videos than one very long video. It is easier to organize and retain information that is delivered in smaller chunks [1]. Students can watch the videos at their own pace and when it fits into their schedule. This works best if you include some reflective writing, ungraded quizzes, or practice activities for students to compete between the videos to help solidify their understanding. Now you can pull the problem sets or study activities that used to be homework into class-time, where students can collaborate or get immediate feedback.

• Provide clear expectations and guidelines - Clearly state your expectations to students for asynchronous learning activities in a prominent location in the class, such as the course syllabus or a course introduction page or module. Some things you may want to include are how much time students can expect to spend on each learning activity [3], where students can look for announcements and FAQs, when asynchronous activities are due, which activities are required and which are optional, and when students can expect feedback on any graded activities. 

• Focus student attention - Without cues that many instructors give off-the-cuff in the classroom, it is important to direct students’ attention to the key points of the material before reading, watching, or listening to something. It is useful to explain the purpose of the experience or give specific guidance on what students should pay attention to while completing the activity [2]. Give students enough context for them to make sense of the material.

• Encourage student interaction - Getting students to interact with one another can sometimes be a challenge in an asynchronous environment. However, there are many technologies that allow students to hold discussions and work together without physically being in the same space [1]. Discussion tools, such as Canvas Discussions, YellowDig, or Harmonize, provide a way for students to have text and multimedia-based conversations with one another and with the instructor.  Peer-review assignments allow students to provide peer-to-peer feedback and create connections with one another.  Group projects also allow students to work together to complete a shared task or goal.  Group projects can be done remotely both synchronously and asynchronously using tools like Zoom, Google Docs, and Canvas Groups. The Canvas Group workspaces, especially, give student groups a learning space of their own that they control and can feel ownership of.

• Provide frequent and concrete feedback - Providing effective feedback that is timely and meaningful gives students a tangible way to gauge their performance and enhances the sense of support and care in a class, especially a remote class. Effective feedback offers recognition of good work as well as specific suggestions for improvement. It can also encourage students to articulate their confusion or difficulty with course content, projects, requirements, or instructions for activities [1]. 

• Establish regular moments of instructor presence - Interacting with students online is quite different from face-to-face classes. Online students can feel disconnected or isolated from their instructors when they do not see or speak with them on a regular basis. Actively engaging with students, one way or another, is essential to asynchronous learning.  Some ways to establish instructor presence in your class include posting weekly announcements, creating brief weekly videos introducing that week’s content and providing information about assignments, scheduling remote office hours, holding synchronous class sessions, and either participating in or posting ‘round-up’ responses to online discussions. 

Effective asynchronous teaching generally does require extra preparation time, ideally before the class begins. Under better circumstances, this can take as much as a year, and amounts to developing a new course! Do not expect yourself to be able to do all of these things under the current circumstances. For now, it may work better to pick a single element of your class to flip.

If you’d like to discuss the best approaches for your particular courses, please feel free to reach out to [email protected]. The LSA Teaching Remotely website also has many recommendations and resources to help you decide how to best replicate the learning experience you want for your students in an online or hybrid form.

Resources

[1] Asynchronous Teaching Tips - University of Louisiana at Lafayette

[2] Asynchronous Strategies - Iowa State University

[3] Rice’s Course Workload Calculator is an excellent tool for estimating time spent on course activities.