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Communicating Appropriately with Online Learners - Teaching Principles

Be Consistent and Accessible

• Establish a consistent method of communication with your learners. At the very beginning of the year or term, tell learners how you will communicate with them. This is essential in the online learning environment. If learners know where messages are being sent, problems and questions can be resolved quickly.

• Make yourself available to provide relevant support for learners’ questions and issues. This does not mean being available every hour of the day, but it does mean communicating the best time frames for you to respond to their messages. The Guidelines for Successful Online Teaching recommend that online teachers reply to learner messages within 24 hours.

Use Proper Etiquette and Grammar in Written Messages

Ensure you represent yourself well as a teacher and disciple of Christ in your communications with learners. This will create an appropriate teacher presence. The following ideas can help when sending written messages:

• Make sure subject lines are clear and to the point.

• Use appropriate greetings. These may be formal depending on the country and culture. Casual words or phrases should be avoided. Learners need to see your use of language as careful and deliberate. Address learners by their name or preferred name as opposed to any informal nicknames or labels. Finish any communication with a salutation and conclude with your name. “Brother” or “Sister” and your last name is always an appropriate way to address learners.

• Use standard spelling and grammar. Avoid anything that could confuse the message you are trying to share with learners, such as abbreviations.

Christlike Communication

Jesus Christ is our example of appropriate communication: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me” (John 14:6). As the only sinless individual who has lived on the earth, He provided the supreme example of how we ought to communicate with each other. True disciples of Jesus Christ seek to follow His example in the ways they communicate. Their communications, both verbal and nonverbal, are to be kind, compassionate, and helpful, reflecting a love for Heavenly Father’s children and an understanding that all people are brothers and sisters. All online teacher communication should strive for this too.

Elder Lionel L. Kendrick of the Seventy taught:

Elder Lionel L. Kendrick

Christlike communications are expressed in tones of love rather than loudness. They are intended to be helpful rather than hurtful. They tend to bind us together rather than to drive us apart. They tend to build rather than to belittle.

Christlike communications are expressions of affection and not anger, truth and not fabrication, compassion and not contention, respect and not ridicule, counsel and not criticism, correction and not condemnation. They are spoken with clarity and not with confusion. They may be tender or they may be tough, but they must always be tempered.

The real challenge that we face in our communications with others is to condition our hearts to have Christlike feelings for all of Heavenly Father’s children. When we develop this concern for the condition of others, we then will communicate with them as the Savior would. We will then warm the hearts of those who may be suffering in silence. As we meet people with special needs along life’s way, we can then make their journey brighter by the things that we say.

Christlike communications will help us to develop righteous relationships and ultimately to return to our heavenly home safely. May we treasure the divine gift of communication, and may we use it wisely to build and to assist others on this marvelous journey through mortality. (“Christlike Communications - Teaching Principles,” Ensign, Nov. 1988, 24)

Christlike communication is especially important in online classes where what you say might be taken the wrong way by the learner. As you strive to follow the Savior’s example of communication in your Canvas announcements, assignment feedback, discussion board replies, inbox messages, and in remote gatherings, you increase your ability to be understood clearly and appropriately.

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Discuss with Your Supervisor

Ponder the following questions and how they might apply to your teaching. Prepare to discuss them with your local S&I supervisor.

• Think generally about how you communicate with learners. Are you kind and understanding? Do you strive to help every learner feel comfortable?

• In all that we do as teachers, we strive to help our learners deepen their conversion to Jesus Christ. This includes how we communicate. When teachers follow these principles, how do they help learners to deepen their conversion to Jesus Christ?

• What is one principle mentioned that impressed you? How could you apply this in your teaching?

• Ask your local S&I supervisor for further guidance on how to communicate appropriately with seminary-aged youth, including any relevant S&I policies and standards of conduct.