A productive online ecology class starts with the faculty being honest and vulnerable about their own understandings of the students and their circumstances. Through such understanding, they can create an environment where shame has no place and difference is acknowledged and valued.
Instructors in charge are the producers of our ecosystem. They set the mood, tone, and atmosphere for students for the entire semester of the course. Nothing can survive the ecosystem without the producers. In this transition from face-to-face instruction, the producers must be intentional and deliberate. Instructors must embrace the fact that good teaching can transport students away from wherever they are to where instructors want them to be. Now more than ever it is imperative that our online teaching practices be led with vulnerability and empathy (hooks, 1994, Brown, 2018). We must acknowledge the environmental and circumstantial differences while welcoming them. During these difficult times it is important that we remember that our students are individuals who live diverse and complicated lives. There are those that only need consistency and stability in their teaching environment, while others may require extra support.
Moreover, it is not just about the instructors’ academic and content language. Instructor non-content talk is more vital than ever in establishing an engaged and inviting “online classroom” culture. Research by the Tanner lab shows that instructor non-content talk impacts (a) building the instructor-student relationship, (b) establishing the classroom culture, (c) pedagogical choices, (d) provides avenues for sharing personal experiences, and 5) unmasking science (Seidel, 2015). All these elements were important in the face-to-face classroom setting, but are even more so during crises remote instruction and online teaching. Non-content talk can break down barriers and allow instructors to connect with students as humans, inspire students to dig deeper and persist and it also decreases the feelings of social and emotional distance between the instructor and students (Mehrabian, 1971). Limiting this perceived distance in the context of sudden and dramatic isolation can help students feel more connected and motivated (Gorham, 1992). Teaching is inherently relational; therefore, it is imperative that instructors engage in politicized caring (McKinney de Royston, 2017, hooks, 1994) that connects with students in robust ways that does not ignore the larger sociocultural contexts in which they are currently living (figure 2).