Regular and Substantive Interaction

Let's look more at each component of RSI

To meet federal regulations (34 CFR 600.2),  and because frequent and high-quality interactions support student learning, all online courses must feature regular and substantive interaction between students and instructors.

• Regular: at least once a week

• Substantive: regarding or focused on course content 

Each week's interactions with students must include at least two of the following:

• Proactively inviting students to connect outside of class;

• Assessing or providing feedback on a student’s coursework within a reasonable amount of time (as defined in the syllabus); 

• Providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course; and/or

• Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course.

Instructors must monitor student progress in the course and communicate with students regarding their progress.

The course must include a substantive (related to academic content of the course) assignment due by the third day of the class, with substantive feedback from the instructor. 

Further Clarification

Instructor-Initiated

It is important that instructors initiate conversations with individual and groups of students. This creates a sense that instructors are present in the class, and that the online activities are an important part of the learning process. Interaction initiated by instructors is how students know they aren’t being taught by a robot. 

Regular

These conversations should be occurring regularly, at least once a week.

Early in the quarter it may be quite a bit more often, to the point of over-communicating. That will speed building a community among your students. Later in the quarter, you’ll be able to dial back a bit, especially as feedback on assignments takes some of the communication load.

*** The first week assignment is critical. Not only does it set the tone in the course, but it impacts student financial aid.  In order to determine if the student is eligible for financial aid, the Department of Education needs proof that the student started the course. A substantive assignment is due by the third day of the class, with substantive feedback from the instructor, is an acceptable (to ED) standard for meeting that requirement.

Academically Substantive

Academically substantive interactions both support students’ perception of the presence of the instructor and keep them focused on the course learning objectives. Examples of substantive interactions are:

• Guidance that is related to the academic content of the course

• Personalized, detailed feedback about a student’s performance on assignments and assessments 

  1. 1. 1. 1. • “Good job” or “Great work!” isn’t sufficient and is not great feedback, in general.

              • "The way you contrasted topic x with topic y helped me as the reader to better understand the nuance between the two ideas" or "When you apply this theory, remember to consider the following issues..." is specific and personalized to the student's goals.

• Information that would help a student who did not earn full credit understand how to improve, or help a student who did well on the assignment know what was good about it.

• Not administrative in nature (e.g. responses to student requests to open up a quiz, or emailing a student a reminder to send in an assignment).

This is not to suggest that administrative and community-building focused interactions don’t have value. They do! And you should include those in your course. However, there should be a healthy stream of content-focused conversation to keep the students learning.

Requirements

The definition specifies that each "interaction with students must include at least two of the following:

• Proactively inviting students to connect outside of class;

• Assessing or providing feedback on a student’s coursework within a reasonable amount of time (as defined in the syllabus); 

• Providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course; or

• Facilitating a group discussion regarding the content of a course."

It also requires you to monitor student progress and communicate with students based on the monitoring. 

Interacting with Students

Remember, RSI is about proactively and meaningfully inviting students to connect. 

Some options for proactively inviting students to connect include the following:

• Meeting with students in real-time, for instance in office hours (or Zoom office hours), for review sessions, etc. 

• Proactively inviting students to regularly scheduled office hours;

• Proactively inviting students to schedule 1:1 meetings with you, during hours that are predictable and scheduled. Aviso is a good options for making appointments available to students.

Assessing or Providing Feedback

Generally, this means personalized feedback on student assignments. The feedback should clearly tell the students what was successful about their assignment, or how they could improve their grades. A helpful way to think about feedback is to be SMART – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Results-oriented, and Time-bound. Strive for actionable information - what can the student do to improve?  Feedback must discuss the work, and indicate how the student can improve on future assignments. “Nice work” is not considered substantive.

Some options for assessing or providing feedback include the following:

• Use of a detailed rubric to provide feedback; or

• Written, recorded, or annotated feedback in Speedgrader (or an equivalent tool).

Some Canvas tools to consider for this are:

• SpeedGrader which streamlines the grading process for assignments submitted in Canvas. 

• Audio or video feedback: every feedback option in Canvas allows you to record audio or a short video feedback

• A clipboard manager or text expander tool, which allows you to re-use common phrases you use when giving feedback. 

One important note here is that the feedback has to be timely. Students need to know what they need to do to improve their grade while they can still act on it in the course. Highline requires faculty to incorporate a statement in our syllabi about how soon we will return assignments. That sets expectations for them as well as for us. 

Providing Information or Responding to Questions

This specifically means questions about the course content, not about administrative matters. Although the definition indicates responses to questions are acceptable, inviting students to ask questions - a.k.a. proactive outreach - is required. Sometimes you might want to respond to a student directly, or if there are several students asking the same course content questions, you might want to respond by providing supplemental information to the whole class.

There are a few good options for answering student questions and providing supplemental information on course content:

• short video on a concept that students need clarification on (based on assessment or assignment data)

• course announcements addressing something that you are noticing in their answers or understanding

• emails to students addressing a misconception or offering a resource to deepen their thinking. 

Interactions regarding the mechanics of the course, such as deadlines, requests for extensions, and grade requests are not considered academically substantive, and therefore don't meet the criteria.

Facilitating a Group Discussion

Group discussions can happen in Zoom, Canvas discussion boards, collaborative editing of a Google document, FlipGrid, or in other formats. In order to be considered substantive, responses to students should include analysis, commendations, and/or redirects that help the discussion, and students' understanding progress.  An introduction/biography discussion would not normally be considered substantive, unless students are asked to talk about course-related knowledge, e.g. “tell us what you’re excited to learn about.”

RSI can be comments and participation either in the flow of the discussion or in Speedgrader. As noted above the comments should be substantive, e.g. clarifications, responses, or extensions of the topic in the discussion, regardless of where they are delivered.

One note: feedback on how to improve discussion grades falls under “Providing Feedback.”

Syllabus Language

The syllabus should include a statement about how quickly students will receive feedback on assignments. A statement in the “Start Here” or similar module of the Canvas course, or in each assignment is definitely a good practice, but it should also be in the syllabus. This helps clarify expectations with students, so that they know when to expect to hear back from you.

Monitoring Student Progress

The instructor must proactively and regularly monitor overall student performance in the course, and determine when students need assistance, and offer that assistance. The student doesn’t have to take up the instructor on that assistance, but the instructor does have to offer it. You should: 

1. Review the gradebook weekly.

2. Identify students who are (and are not) doing well.

3. Reach out to students directly:

   • Offer assistance to students who are not doing well, such as pointers to helpful information or an invitation to office hours.

   • Acknowledge students who are doing well.

Some Canvas tools to consider for this are:

• SpeedGrader and the Canvas Gradebook are key tools for tracking student performance and reaching out.  For example, you can reach out to a student who didn't submit an assignment by adding a SpeedGrader comment to direct the student to resources to help complete the assignment. 

• Canvas Inbox is another great tool for reaching out to students who are doing well and those who need some help. For instance, you can message anyone who scored less than 70% on a quiz with a suggestion to come to your office hours. 

  1. 1. 1. 1. • Message Students Who..." options in the Canvas grade book

Requiring a First Week Assignment

The best first-week assignments serve multiple purposes. They establish that the student has engaged with the course, they verify attendance, they give you a chance to learn more about the student's prior knowledge or connection to the subject, and they show you some of the assets students bring to the class. You can have multiple sections of this assignment and have some questions that are more logistical or getting to know you, but you must also have questions about the content of the course. 

For online classes, students must complete a substantive activity that is turned into you within the first three days of the class start date. There are two reasons for this:

• Financial aid reporting requires students to participate in the class in a substantive way in order to count as having "attended" the class.

• Student add/drop, and the ability to add wait-listed students, are based on whether someone has "attended".

The substantive activity serves as the way of taking attendance in an online class.

When should it be due?

It's best to aim for third day of the quarter. While we want to know as soon as possible, it may take students a few days to sort out their online access. For online students, they're in the class for schedule flexibility. We need to allow a few days for them to get the time to work on the assignments. The first day that students can be withdrawn by the instructor is the fourth day of the quarter, so a third-day deadline works well. 

What does "substantive" mean?

For online classes, the assignment needs to be "academically substantive." Broadly, that means it is relevant to the content of the course. Here are a some characteristics that can help guide you in creating an activity.

• The activity can be an assignment or quiz, as long as some activity is submitted by students to you for a grade. 

• The activity should focus on the course content. In other words, the student should be responding to something or demonstrating knowledge of something on the course outline. 

• It can't be administrative ("I got into my email!") or even geared primarily to community building (e.g. "post your bio to the class discussion"). 

• Diagnostics are a wonderful way to meet the substantive portion of the requirement and gather data about what students already know or may need support with. 

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