“I’m searching for better ways to have the same connections with my online students as I have with my face-to-face students.”

“How do we build meaningful relationships with students when it seems that AI can replace the need for personal instruction?”

These were some of the concerns shared during a Spring 2025 CTLD Book Discussion to talk about the book, Connecting in the Online Classroom: Building Rapport between Teachers and Students, by Rebecca Glazier.

Dr. Glazier is an associate professor of political science at the University of Arkansas Little Rock, an institution with a student population similar to MSU Denver. Her own struggles with retention in online courses led her to experiment with different methods and to ultimately write this book, which contains summaries of large-scale studies as well as practical strategies for faculty.

An Online Retention Crisis

In this book, Dr. Glazier declares that we have an online retention crisis. Online courses have been expanding access to higher education and offer great potential, especially for disadvantaged, first-generation, lower income, and working students. However, there is a persistent gap in retention between face-to-face and online courses. She argues that overall, online courses—specifically asynchronous online courses—are hurting the very students they are supposed to be helping.

Although there are many reasons for this retention disparity, she traces this gap to a noted lack of connection between students and instructors in online courses. Decades of research indicate that positive student relationships with faculty are one of the strongest predictors of student success, especially for first-generation and disadvantaged students. However, this connection is often missing, or perceived to be missing, in online courses. In her own studies, students report that a major reason for dropping an online class is this lack of connection.

Building Rapport

The author suggests that the missing link is to build “rapport” with students, which can include:

• letting students know we are on their side,
• providing clear communication and supportive messages,
• offering constructive and timely feedback,
• connecting with students on a human level, and
• providing that “personal touch” in our courses.

She experimented with and implemented rapport strategies in her own online courses and was able to remove the retention gap. She argues that “instructors may not realize just how powerful an effect they can have on retention in their courses. A student’s relationship with their instructor is often a significant predictor of whether or not they will drop out of an online class” (p.69).

How Can We Build Rapport with Students?

Building rapport and personalizing instruction can take time and effort. The good news for those making such an effort is that there is evidence that this effort matters.

The book offers numerous suggestions, ranging from low to high time involvement and complexity. In addition, our CTLD book discussion participants shared additional rich ideas. Here is a sampling of ideas from both sources.

Humanize Yourself as the Instructor

It is important for students to see their professor as a real person who cares about their success.

• Add a profile picture or image that represents you in Canvas (this simple step is missing from numerous online courses).
• Use warm, inviting language in your syllabus, get students excited about the course.
• Show your personality! Be yourself in your presentations, record informal videos to provide updates or assignment primers, give students a virtual field trip of your studio or workspace.
• Share short videos from former students or TAs talking about the class and giving advice for success.
• Admit your own mistakes to show you are human and to demonstrate how you want students to handle their mistakes.

Provide Personalized Feedback

Nothing can make students feel more valued than receiving feedback clearly tailored for them and designed to help them improve and succeed.

• Use student’s names in comments, discussions and feedback.
• Be a “warm demander,” holding students to high standards but letting them know you are on their side.
• Check in personally with students who are falling behind.
• Send personal emails to students at a few select times during the semester (the author sends five standard yet personalized emails to each student at strategically selected points each semester).
• Develop time-saving methods to personalize emails. Create a document of common student-response language and use a “copy-paste-personalize” approach, mail merge, or Jeff Loats’ Text Replacement Tool examples.
• Provide audio feedback on major assignments (being conscious of accessibility).
• Use videos or Go React for students to discuss with each other or to provide feedback.

Reach Out to Students

An important aspect of rapport is good communication through responsive and helpful email exchanges and proactively reaching out to students.

• Share your expected response time.
• Create an introductory survey to get to know students (and to also reinforce course expectations and what it’s like to learn online).
• Send frequent emails/announcements with updates or feedback to the entire class. (Use catchy titles such as, Do you agree with Maria’s discussion post? Or, When is that midterm project due again?).
• Use the “Message students who…” feature in Canvas to reach out to students who have missed assignments or have low grades in some areas (note this feature does not include the students’ name in the email, so might feel somewhat impersonal).
• Encourage students to attend virtual office hours.
• Take a deep breath before responding to student emails, remembering the many times we ourselves didn’t read the full email or asked a question that may have already been answered.

There are a lot of ideas here! Ideally you will notice some that you are already doing (kudos!) and find a few new ideas worth trying. Some of these ideas take additional time, yet others involve just a change in the way we interact with students. Remember that small changes to your teaching habits have long-lasting impacts. And as Dr. Glazier argues, the time and effort spent building rapport with students is one of the most effective means of improving online retention.

Glazier, R. A. (2021). Connecting in the online classroom: Building rapport between teachers and students. JHU Press.

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