Taking a moment for a midpoint check-in with your students

The Drexel quarter system flies by, one minute you are getting to know your students and then all the sudden it feels like their midterms are graded and finals are around the corner. For students, it can be easy to put something off until tomorrow or take a day off and then all of the sudden feel behind. Taking time to make a personal connection can help engage or reengage students in your course, especially if they feel as if time has gotten away from them. As faculty, we might already use the beginning of our courses to get to know our students, but the midpoint of a course can be an important time to check in as well. The midpoint of a course is a great time to let students know you have not forgotten about them and want to learn about how class is going for them. This can be especially important in the virtual space, synchronous or asynchronous. Below are a few strategies that communicate to students both that you continue to be interested in learning about them and their experience in your class and what avenues still exist for ongoing support with course content and assignments.  

Send a check-in email to students

Looking through our gradebooks, we can quickly see which students are struggling or may soon be on the verge of struggling. A short email to students from you (or your TA) that lets the student know you are paying attention to their progress and want to invite them to come to office hours can go a long way towards encouraging students to utilize resources they may be forgetting about, imagining they are too busy to use, or avoiding admitting they need altogether.

Good Morning {Student},

I just wanted to check-in as we reach the midpoint of the quarter and remind you that we have weekly Office Hours {DAY, TIME, LINK}. It would be great to see you and chat about the {problem set, upcoming assignment, practice test questions, etc.}. It’s okay to stop by even if you don’t have any specific questions. We can also check in about any assignments you may have missed.

Warmly/Best/Take Care,
{Professor}

Check-in on how the course is working for students

Many of us are not teaching in our typical course modality right now and we just don’t know how students are experiencing our courses. The midpoint can be a time to check-in on the course structure (beyond final evaluations) and find out what’s working for students and which of your teaching practices they perceive as most effective. These emails can be short and sweet and still have a big impact. For example, a simple Start, Stop, Continue (or Start, Stop, Keep) survey or discussion can help you learn about what’s working for students and give you some ideas for small tweaks to your lessons, resources, or pacing. It’s also a nice tool to allow you to connect with students. Once you read their feedback, you can say “I noticed some students request I provide more illustrations of processes, so I am including this one in the lecture and have uploaded a couple more in Blackboard Learn.” Or, “I was so glad to see you folks found the short quizzes helpful, they are intended to help you have a sense of how well you are understanding the material, and I can see that’s working.” 

Remind students that you are a human being who cares about their learning

It's important to students that they know you care about their success and learning. One way to do this is to create a video to remind your students that you are a real person with the goal to support their learning. This short video (<2 minutes is fine) can just say “hello,” and that you wanted to check in and let students know you are enjoying teaching them. You might also remind students why you find the content interesting or related to the world around us. It’s also great to end by highlighting upcoming assignments and opportunities to ask questions about those assignments (this can include an exam review, review study sheets and sample questions in Blackboard Learn, upcoming office hours, links to other supports like the Math Learning Center, etc.).  

At times, students can feel like they are flying under the radar in a class and that the instructors or TAs are not noticing them. This can sometimes enable them to ignore warning signs that they may be struggling to understand the content or develop course competencies. A midpoint check-in helps to humanize the learning experience, communicate to your students that you care, reassure them that it’s okay to find the course challenging, and remind them that resources are available because we know the content can be challenging. Overall, these strategies are an important way to support learning for all our students.