Regular and Substantive Interaction Characteristics

Initiated by the Instructor

To count as ‘regular and substantive,’ interactions need to be started by you. This doesn’t mean students should be discouraged from contacting you or asking questions, but you should expect to take an active part in initiating and guiding a range of interactions with your students throughout the quarter. This ensures that interactions are not optional and left up to each student’s individual discretion; rather, they are an integral part of your instructional plan for the course.

Examples

Post a weekly discussion question and actively facilitate the responses.
Ask a student who is falling behind to come to your office hours or to schedule a meeting time with you.

Frequent and Consistent

Interactions with students should be reasonably frequent and consistently repeated throughout the quarter. This means that once a course begins, long intervals of time shouldn’t pass between the interactions you initiate with students. The mode of interaction may vary throughout the course, depending on your aims and the needs of your students, but the regular cadence of interactions you establish should remain as consistent as possible. Daily communication isn’t required, but at a minimum you should seek to interact with every student at least once each week.

Examples

Post a regular announcement in Canvas that previews the content for the week.
Host an optional synchronous review session every-other week on Teams.

Focused on the Course Subject

Interactions should be connected to the subject of the course and contribute to the students’ progress toward course, program, and college learning objectives. Routine procedural interactions, such as reminders of upcoming deadlines, aren’t ‘substantive’ on their own; neither are activities like assigning grades, unless they are accompanied by personalized feedback or suggestions for improvement. This doesn’t mean that interactions designed to welcome students or build classroom community aren’t important, merely that they aren’t sufficient by themselves.

Examples

Create a discussion or announcement about a how a current event relates to a topic in the course.
Use the Speedgrader and Annotations in Canvas to provide personalized feedback on assignments.
Create a Collaboration (shared Word or Google document) in Canvas to demonstrate a skill or provide feedback to groups or individual students.

Quick Check

How often should you aim to interact with students?

Once a quarter: Quarterly is not frequent enough. At a minimum you should seek to interact with every student at least once each week.
Once a month: Monthly is not frequent enough. At a minimum you should seek to interact with every student at least once each week.
Once a week: Correct: At a minimum you should seek to interact with every student at least once each week.
Daily: Daily communication isn’t required, but at a minimum you should seek to interact with every student at least once each week.

The content on this page is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License. Adapted from an Everett Community College document.