WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.930 --> 00:00:21.099 Emily Haagenson: Thank you. Everyone for attending today's workshop in our picnic Pd series. Today, we're going to be discussing nurturing classroom connection tips for writing course, communication for adult learners. I'm Emily Higginson. I'm an instructional designer with Ctl. And this is my lovely colleague, Lauren Dana. 2 00:00:21.350 --> 00:00:27.860 Lauren Dana: Thank you, Emily, as Emily said, my name is Lauren Dana, and I'm also an instructional designer from Ctl. 3 00:00:29.070 --> 00:00:38.159 Lauren Dana: So before we get started today, we just quickly wanted to go over today's learning objectives. So after completing this workshop, you will be able to 4 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:42.430 Lauren Dana: discuss specific needs communication needs for adult learners 5 00:00:43.490 --> 00:00:48.520 Lauren Dana: signal effectively and utilize best writing practices for course assignments 6 00:00:49.310 --> 00:00:55.320 Lauren Dana: and finally identify and apply best communication practices for course emails. 7 00:00:57.850 --> 00:01:08.099 Emily Haagenson: Before we get into some practical suggestions, I want to address some of the purpose behind attending to our writing as primarily scientists and instructors. 8 00:01:08.150 --> 00:01:19.820 Emily Haagenson: The way that you communicate conveys several messages to your students, and particularly in a course that does an online course where a lot of your communication is written. 9 00:01:20.330 --> 00:01:33.670 Emily Haagenson: identity, philosophies, priorities, expectations, attitudes, all come across through your writer's voice and tone, but also your organization, word, choice, or syntax. 10 00:01:33.770 --> 00:01:40.430 Emily Haagenson: Whatever personal writing strategies you're including in your unique writer's voice. Just make sure they're intentional. 11 00:01:42.870 --> 00:01:52.840 Lauren Dana: As Emily just discussed. Your writing can set the stage for your entire course, and clear communication is essential, particularly for assignments and emails 12 00:01:53.180 --> 00:02:04.330 Lauren Dana: in today's workshop. We're 1st going to discuss the specific communication needs of adult learners based on research, learning theory and all of our own personal experiences. 13 00:02:04.390 --> 00:02:11.939 Lauren Dana: We will then explore and practice how to signal in your course instructions to make them more effective for your students. 14 00:02:12.350 --> 00:02:22.189 Lauren Dana: Finally, we will examine the best practices for writing meaningful and constructive course emails and apply these practices to a welcome email for your course. 15 00:02:22.280 --> 00:02:26.500 Lauren Dana: We then invite you to stay for Q&A. And office hours. 16 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:44.360 Emily Haagenson: Let's begin by considering our learning and writing audience at Bsp, all of our learners are adults and graduate students. All are online, at least to some extent, and many are working professionals in public health fields. 17 00:02:44.430 --> 00:02:47.610 Emily Haagenson: Many are participating in courses remotely. 18 00:02:47.640 --> 00:03:00.070 Emily Haagenson: I know some of you are joining us from beyond Bsp. But some of your students fit at least some of these descriptions as well. At least they're adults or near-adults with competing priorities. 19 00:03:00.220 --> 00:03:11.449 Emily Haagenson: So we'd like you to take a moment. Imagine one learner in one of your courses as an example. It can be a specific learner that you have in mind, or an imagined possible student. 20 00:03:11.520 --> 00:03:15.950 Emily Haagenson: What are 3 words you might use to describe this person? 21 00:03:16.060 --> 00:03:19.529 Emily Haagenson: Go ahead and type your 3 descriptive words into the chat. 22 00:03:41.110 --> 00:03:43.289 Emily Haagenson: No, no, student descriptors. 23 00:03:44.790 --> 00:04:08.799 Emily Haagenson: Thank you. Mia, thank you. Stephanie experienced high performing. Busy. Yes, absolutely. Thank you. Busy, competent, curious. Back to Stephanie. Stressed. Yes, motivated, still brainstorming. That's great. Carrie says, thought-provoking. Lots of busy, right? Top learners. Scientific. Right? We're 24 00:04:08.800 --> 00:04:20.730 Emily Haagenson: we're proud of Bsp, the students we have. They're busy. They're motivated. Thank you. Heather. They're task-oriented and grade centered. Thank you. These are all really good. 25 00:04:20.730 --> 00:04:29.539 Emily Haagenson: right, absolutely good descriptions. Let's take a moment to consider these adult learners a little more closely. 26 00:04:32.510 --> 00:04:56.320 Emily Haagenson: Once again, adult learners in Bsp graduate courses and across the university are very often working adults with conflicting priorities. Their other professional and personal concerns are constantly being balanced with the demands of their learning. Therefore we need to consider how we capture their attention, and how we balance their cognitive load in order to help maintain their focus. 27 00:04:56.960 --> 00:04:59.169 Emily Haagenson: want to know a way to catch their attention. 28 00:04:59.490 --> 00:05:06.740 Emily Haagenson: Intentional deviations from expected language or punctuation patterns can be a strategic way to redirect attention. 29 00:05:06.880 --> 00:05:11.039 Emily Haagenson: Also try varying sentence length or punctuation marks. 30 00:05:11.300 --> 00:05:12.519 Emily Haagenson: See what I did there. 31 00:05:12.690 --> 00:05:22.859 Emily Haagenson: Additionally, when learners see that a topic at hand has a high general efficacy and purpose both in the world and in their work. Specifically. 32 00:05:22.870 --> 00:05:25.949 Emily Haagenson: they're more likely to be engaged and inspired. 33 00:05:26.820 --> 00:05:40.469 Emily Haagenson: However, beyond the big picture. Adult learners also want to be able to harness the practicalities, of course material and clearly see how they can or will use the learning in their careers and lives. 34 00:05:40.810 --> 00:05:54.139 Emily Haagenson: This isn't so different from you all attending our session today. You want to be able to walk away with something you can really use. Isn't that the hallmark of a really great workshop or conference. Our students want that, too. 35 00:05:54.410 --> 00:06:08.909 Emily Haagenson: Adult learners are juggling. Ultimately it's essential we provide them with flexibility that will help them engage with the learning options for flexible topics, contexts, even deadlines can help meet adult learners where they're at 36 00:06:09.680 --> 00:06:25.410 Emily Haagenson: overall. Clear communication helps us to attend to all of these needs, and more in our writing, we can use our learner's attention wisely, by clearly, concisely, and maybe a bit creatively conveying compelling meaning. 37 00:06:28.020 --> 00:06:32.140 Emily Haagenson: Tldr, who knows what Tldr means. 38 00:06:32.410 --> 00:06:38.280 Emily Haagenson: Some hands, even if you aren't sure about the acronym. Thank you, Stephanie. 39 00:06:38.300 --> 00:06:43.960 Emily Haagenson: You know what this means. Tldr stands for too long. Didn't read. 40 00:06:44.690 --> 00:06:48.410 Emily Haagenson: always assume someone is skimming what you're writing. 41 00:06:48.550 --> 00:06:58.390 Emily Haagenson: If your audience is skimming, then we need to write accordingly, by attending to signaling and formatting and keeping things clear and concise 42 00:07:00.770 --> 00:07:17.550 Emily Haagenson: when hoping to provide clear instructions without overburning your reader, we can avoid using large blocks of text, and instead employ some of the following signaling and formatting techniques. Most importantly, we want to focus on being clear and concise 43 00:07:17.720 --> 00:07:26.299 Emily Haagenson: in directions. You want to provide students with everything they need all in one place, so they aren't spending their energies hunting around your course. Site. 44 00:07:27.040 --> 00:07:36.720 Emily Haagenson: Directions should also be concise. If you want to provide additional resources for guidance, link them to short and sweet instructions. 45 00:07:37.510 --> 00:07:45.870 Emily Haagenson: Attend also to the order of information. You're providing the most important information should come first, st and at the top 46 00:07:46.170 --> 00:07:49.709 Emily Haagenson: use subtitles to distinguish different sections. 47 00:07:49.770 --> 00:07:55.350 Emily Haagenson: and with instructions in particular, provide clear step-by-step. Sequencing. 48 00:07:55.830 --> 00:08:05.090 Emily Haagenson: spacing is very helpful to guide the eye and the brain, using bulleted lists to break up comments, allows for easy skimming. 49 00:08:05.300 --> 00:08:08.680 Emily Haagenson: while blank space also provides a mental break. 50 00:08:09.060 --> 00:08:12.749 Emily Haagenson: Fonts can also help signal important information. 51 00:08:12.790 --> 00:08:18.229 Emily Haagenson: highlight and or bold information that's most essential or needs a response. 52 00:08:18.710 --> 00:08:26.160 Emily Haagenson: Personally, I avoid an underline to do this, because in 2024, an underline most commonly signals an embedded link 53 00:08:26.250 --> 00:08:34.360 Emily Haagenson: to that end. Links should always be embedded in relevant text and clearly marked with an underline and or a distinct font color. 54 00:08:34.909 --> 00:08:49.060 Emily Haagenson: One of the greatest benefits of clear signaling through formatting can be consistency. If students know what to expect from your organizational patterns, reading and retaining the information that you share with them becomes easier. 55 00:08:49.480 --> 00:09:02.920 Emily Haagenson: Ultimately, all of these formatting techniques allow you to help optimize cognitive load for your learners. Well-organized material. Allow your students to apply more of their mental energy to the learning material or the activity 56 00:09:04.570 --> 00:09:31.640 Emily Haagenson: we're going to practice. So based on some of the strategies we discussed, I want to give everyone a few minutes to reformat these assignment instructions Amy just copied and pasted what we have on the left into the chat. If you all can also copy the text there and paste it into a word document. We're going to give you a couple minutes to tinker with the format of these instructions. 57 00:09:32.820 --> 00:09:40.149 Emily Haagenson: Consider keeping this document open also, as you may be able to use it later in our presentation with Lauren. 58 00:09:42.550 --> 00:09:54.030 Emily Haagenson: you should be able to improve these instructions significantly, just by reformatting, but feel free to make up any missing information for increased specificity as well. 59 00:09:55.140 --> 00:10:01.250 Emily Haagenson: I'm going to give you about 2 and a half minutes to tinker. 60 00:11:42.100 --> 00:11:46.020 Emily Haagenson: It's okay if you're still tinkering. But I'm gonna I'm gonna come off 61 00:11:46.290 --> 00:12:02.120 Emily Haagenson: off. Turn off the music. Can anyone share either in the chat or by raising your zoom hand. Some changes that you made to improve these instructions with signaling and formatting techniques. 62 00:12:14.820 --> 00:12:16.679 Emily Haagenson: I know that wasn't a lot of time. 63 00:12:34.690 --> 00:12:55.250 Emily Haagenson: I see, Carrie in the chat. I see your hand, Celine. Carrie, in the chat, says bullet points for each requirement. Helpful. Mia's not done. That's okay, added a location for the reading. Absolutely. Yes, just referencing the reading offhand. We want to put it in there, maybe even a link. Great 64 00:12:55.250 --> 00:13:17.529 Emily Haagenson: bulleted the information according to the criteria very helpful again for people skimming. What do I need to do for this assignment? Stephanie added. Hyperlinks for the 2 reference articles absolutely definitely changes. I would make, too. Heather gave it a title assignment number to help learners understand which activity they're working on. Yes. 65 00:13:17.530 --> 00:13:25.500 Emily Haagenson: definitely. Thank you. Kathy's not done. That's okay. These are all good suggestions, Celine. I know your hand was up. Did you want to share? 66 00:13:26.260 --> 00:13:27.479 Emily Haagenson: You're good. Okay. 67 00:13:29.900 --> 00:13:33.960 Emily Haagenson: these are all good changes. These are changes I made as well. 68 00:13:36.020 --> 00:14:02.230 Emily Haagenson: You can see here. The original instructions are on the left, and some of my edits are on the right. I made many of the same changes that you all made. But I want to look specifically at that yellow, highlighted line. I made several changes there for specificity, so it says. Write a paper, I added the length of the paper. Right? A paper means something different to. 69 00:14:02.740 --> 00:14:13.659 Emily Haagenson: you know. There's a wide variety of what a paper can look like. Analyze the policy. Memo. This is something where we tend to use 70 00:14:13.660 --> 00:14:36.200 Emily Haagenson: reuse the same verbs over and over, and students don't know necessarily what we mean by analyze. So I added more specificity around identifying strengths and weaknesses of the argument and justifying whether or not you agree with the recommendation. You can see also the original sentence says, Submit. 71 00:14:36.260 --> 00:14:55.309 Emily Haagenson: I added, submit via the dropbox right? More specific around how they submit the assignment, and then, by the due date was in the original text, and there I not only added a specific date, but highlighted it. So it's really clear and obvious for 72 00:14:55.680 --> 00:14:57.470 Emily Haagenson: for this, for the learner. 73 00:14:57.530 --> 00:15:10.569 Emily Haagenson: So these signaling techniques are useful beyond just writing course instructions to almost all writing outputs, including course emails. My colleague Lauren, is going to talk to us a little bit about those emails. 74 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:34.819 Lauren Dana: Great. Thank you, Emily. We're now going to discuss the importance of communication through course email. And I know that most of us spend a very large portion of our days responding to and writing emails. And this high volume often keeps us from following the best communication practices right? We just want to get the email finished and out. 75 00:15:34.910 --> 00:15:45.899 Lauren Dana: However, these best practices do really matter in course, communication in which course emails may be one of the few direct and personal interactions that you have with students. 76 00:15:46.020 --> 00:15:52.930 Lauren Dana: So today, I wanted to highlight some of the research surrounding the impacts. That intentional course emails can have 77 00:15:54.100 --> 00:16:17.469 Lauren Dana: varied and consistent communication between the learners and instructor is incredibly important for adult learners, and one way to provide this communication is through frequent and meaningful emails which will in turn help increase engagement and motivation within the class for busy adult learners. As this type of personalized communication can make the learners feel valued 78 00:16:18.930 --> 00:16:31.360 Lauren Dana: instructor emails can also help build course community. As Emily mentioned writing. And in this case writing an email can help an instructor express their personality and ideas and build rapport with their students. 79 00:16:32.780 --> 00:16:41.929 Lauren Dana: Additionally, emails can help provide adult learners with a written record. Of course, communication which is incredibly important for busy adult learners. 80 00:16:43.250 --> 00:16:55.789 Lauren Dana: Finally, emails can provide adult learners with helpful reminders about assignment, due dates or synthesize key points from a class discussion that can help reduce cognitive overload and increase the understanding of content. 81 00:16:56.420 --> 00:17:03.620 Lauren Dana: Utilizing email impactfully is especially helpful for your students who have many competing priorities and obligations. 82 00:17:06.030 --> 00:17:20.690 Lauren Dana: Now that we know why course communication through emails matter, I want to quickly review some best practices. The 1st best practice is to compose and send course emails through course plus or whatever your learning management system is. 83 00:17:20.790 --> 00:17:28.929 Lauren Dana: if you do this, you will have a record of email sent for future reference, and you can even use emails from past offerings for future offerings. 84 00:17:28.970 --> 00:17:33.530 Lauren Dana: Okay, now that I've given you that pro tip, we're going to now focus on format. 85 00:17:35.020 --> 00:17:45.609 Lauren Dana: The 1st thing you'll want to take a look at is the subject line of an email. The subject line of an email conveys important information. And you need to maximize the power of the subject line 86 00:17:45.820 --> 00:17:52.110 Lauren Dana: we recommend using the subject line as a short summary of the most important information conveyed in the email 87 00:17:52.230 --> 00:18:02.990 Lauren Dana: words you might consider, including upcoming deadlines, assignment, due date reminders, urgent updates, live talk reminders, weekly course, check-in. 88 00:18:03.180 --> 00:18:14.830 Lauren Dana: Using any of these subject lines meaningfully helps your very busy students not only prioritize the reading of your email as well as allows them to easily search for your email by the relevant subject. 89 00:18:16.490 --> 00:18:25.669 Lauren Dana: When possible, you might want to title and subtitle the content and emails to organize information for your students and reduce cognitive overload. 90 00:18:25.760 --> 00:18:33.320 Lauren Dana: For example, you may have an email subtitle for weekly reminders and a subtitle for future due dates 91 00:18:35.230 --> 00:18:41.240 Lauren Dana: similar to assignments. It is really important to utilize the signaling practices that Emily discussed. 92 00:18:41.390 --> 00:18:48.610 Lauren Dana: Bullet points, highlighting and intentional spacing are all important practices to employ when writing your emails. 93 00:18:50.020 --> 00:18:59.259 Lauren Dana: Finally, I want to remind you that if you're embedding a web link in your email, you want to make sure that you avoid using statements like click on this link. 94 00:18:59.310 --> 00:19:08.270 Lauren Dana: Instead, you want to be very descriptive to what the link is. For example, please click on infectious disease data from 2024, 95 00:19:09.520 --> 00:19:21.990 Lauren Dana: and finally, for format similar to what Emily has discussed, you should place the most important information at the beginning of your email to anticipate the very limited time that your students may spend with your email. 96 00:19:22.070 --> 00:19:32.309 Lauren Dana: You also want to make the email readable, avoid large blocks of text that make up muddle comprehension and be as concise as possible through word choice and prioritizing messages. 97 00:19:34.370 --> 00:19:46.200 Lauren Dana: I also quickly want to review frequency of emails while this workshop is more focused on writing tips when and how often you send emails is a key part of student engagement and motivation 98 00:19:46.380 --> 00:19:50.580 Lauren Dana: research supports having a predictable schedule. 99 00:19:50.750 --> 00:19:55.339 Lauren Dana: When you send out class emails so that your students have consistency. 100 00:19:55.520 --> 00:20:14.439 Lauren Dana: If you use course plus or another Lms email feature, you can actually schedule a date on which to send your emails. So, for example, if you always want to send weekly course reminders out on Sunday night, you can write the email Friday morning before the weekend and schedule a Sunday night delivery time all through course, plus, or your Lms. 101 00:20:15.290 --> 00:20:27.899 Lauren Dana: I also recommend being timely and proactive, based on your own past experiences. For example, if you know, students always have questions about an assignment, try to reach out to them prior to the due date, with an email. 102 00:20:28.000 --> 00:20:30.600 Lauren Dana: provide reminders when you think they need it. 103 00:20:31.170 --> 00:20:35.010 Lauren Dana: Finally, allow your personality to develop through your emails. 104 00:20:35.070 --> 00:20:43.440 Lauren Dana: Following these breast practices does not mean you can't be yourself and use your own voice throughout the email and have fun with your students. 105 00:20:43.940 --> 00:21:00.810 Lauren Dana: So before I move on to a sample email that employs some of these strategies. I wanted to see if you personally have any pro tips that you want to share with us, or if there's any strategies that I discussed, that you might be interested in trying. So if you could just place that in the chat, I'll give you a minute or 2, 106 00:21:01.770 --> 00:21:05.839 Lauren Dana: and we can see if you have any pro tips that you can share with us 107 00:21:06.060 --> 00:21:08.220 Lauren Dana: or strategies, you would like to 108 00:21:08.500 --> 00:21:10.920 Lauren Dana: to try out in your future emails. 109 00:21:17.750 --> 00:21:21.749 Lauren Dana: All right. So mia likes the post about timing and routine. 110 00:21:22.730 --> 00:21:29.970 Lauren Dana: Yes, I'm an online student as well. And my instructor, I like when my instructors send out emails on the same day same time. 111 00:21:30.050 --> 00:21:35.279 Lauren Dana: Oh, Heather has used AI to help generate subject lines for emails that's really interesting heather. 112 00:21:35.570 --> 00:21:37.380 Lauren Dana: That might be a good workshop 113 00:21:38.130 --> 00:21:50.179 Lauren Dana: case, Celine, pro tip. If you're finding questions every year about the same assignment, rewrite the assignment. Yes, you can use Emily's suggestions to rework the assignment to avoid having to send an email out. 114 00:21:50.430 --> 00:21:58.950 Lauren Dana: Amy likes to include the course number in the subject line. So it's searchable later. Thanks, Amy, that's excellent, right? If the students taking multiple courses. 115 00:21:58.990 --> 00:22:01.081 Lauren Dana: That's a great way to keep track. 116 00:22:01.480 --> 00:22:07.479 Lauren Dana: Carrie, like said, do you have sending weekly emails? Yes, Carrie, I find that's very popular with my tas and faculty. 117 00:22:07.890 --> 00:22:12.970 Lauren Dana: mia, targeted and direct emails add real value. Great. 118 00:22:17.830 --> 00:22:26.209 Lauren Dana: right? Exactly, man. We want students, said they. But they want to make sure that it's worth reading, right? Because we don't want our students to delete or tldr our emails. 119 00:22:27.010 --> 00:22:34.689 Lauren Dana: Casealian. Excellent. Consider redirects or course site for supporting resources. Right? So your email is not like 10 pages long. You can redirect them. 120 00:22:35.320 --> 00:22:45.990 Lauren Dana: and Amy also likes using the send later feature to stay on schedule. Right? We all get busy. So Sunday night emails, I think it's way. Better to try to to schedule those to be sent out later. 121 00:22:47.930 --> 00:22:54.269 Lauren Dana: Caseline, instead of attachments, provide links, if when possible. Yes, I agree with that, Selena, I think that's a great pro tip. 122 00:22:55.830 --> 00:22:58.637 Lauren Dana: Excellent. These are great. We'll have to compile these 123 00:22:59.480 --> 00:23:02.280 Lauren Dana: As for sources that people can use. 124 00:23:02.590 --> 00:23:18.000 Lauren Dana: Carrie good starting new emails with new subjects. I know some of us have those emails that are maybe 10,000 replies upon replies, sometimes it really is better just to to start a new email with new subjects so that we know we can find it and keep the information organized. 125 00:23:18.370 --> 00:23:20.659 Lauren Dana: These are great. Thank you. Everyone. 126 00:23:20.930 --> 00:23:28.559 Lauren Dana: Oh, I think we have one more. Let's see. And saying, keep language neutral. Excellent. Yeah, no colloquialisms be inclusive. 127 00:23:28.740 --> 00:23:34.640 Lauren Dana: Okay. So we don't want to use language that not everyone might understand, depending on where they're from. Good. 128 00:23:37.510 --> 00:23:39.300 Lauren Dana: Great, thank you. Everyone. 129 00:23:40.970 --> 00:23:55.629 Lauren Dana: Okay. So I just wanted to provide a quick sample email which incorporates many, not all of the best practices we just reviewed. This email is actually one that I wrote to all the leading picnic Pd workshop presenters. However, the content doesn't matter. It's more the format. 130 00:23:55.770 --> 00:24:19.820 Lauren Dana: The subject line is hard to see, but in the image it States next steps and deadlines for picnic Pd. Which is clear and alerts the reader to the main points of the email, and, as Mia said, I do think it adds value to the email. You want to make sure you're meeting your deadlines. It makes my reader hopefully want to read my email. I avoided large blocks of text and had ample spacing to increase readability. 131 00:24:20.080 --> 00:24:26.750 Lauren Dana: I created different sections in the email. I have a next step section and a section that outlines, deliverables. 132 00:24:26.900 --> 00:24:33.650 Lauren Dana: and I also incorporated the signaling practices that Emily discussed like bullet points, to increase readability 133 00:24:33.720 --> 00:24:40.910 Lauren Dana: and bolding to highlight important information like due dates, which allow my reader to scan for key information. 134 00:24:43.600 --> 00:24:59.489 Lauren Dana: Okay, so now it is going to be your turn. We're now going to jump into our activity where you can practice some of the email writing tips that we just reviewed. Since we're at the beginning of the new school year, we are going to recommend that you work on creating or revising your courses. Welcome email. 135 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:01.559 Lauren Dana: If you have used an email 136 00:25:01.570 --> 00:25:14.650 Lauren Dana: in in the past that you've used, I'll give you a few minutes just to pull this up. If you do not have a prior welcome email, or you just want to create a new welcome email or any email for your course at all. It doesn't have to be a welcome email. 137 00:25:14.700 --> 00:25:19.549 Lauren Dana: I recommend just pulling up the word document that you used for Emily's activity. 138 00:25:20.770 --> 00:25:37.840 Lauren Dana: Okay? So I'm gonna give you about 2 min and 30 seconds very specific time to start writing or revising your email. I know this isn't a lot of time. But we do just wanna get you to apply some of the practices and think critically about your email as you write or revise it. 139 00:25:38.194 --> 00:25:42.270 Lauren Dana: So I'm gonna turn on our music to give us about 2 min and 30 seconds. 140 00:25:42.808 --> 00:25:46.830 Lauren Dana: So please, if you have any questions, put them in the chat and get started. 141 00:28:19.640 --> 00:28:27.780 Lauren Dana: Okay, great. Our time has run out. That was fast. I do want to just address a quick question, a great question from carolyn 142 00:28:27.810 --> 00:28:54.810 Lauren Dana: in the chat. So yes, I I do think, having a brief salutation, everyone, as Emily said, might handle it differently. But I do think it's absolutely fine. Say, you know, hope everyone's doing well. Hope everyone had a great weekend we don't wanna take that out and make our our emails completely business oriented. But I would definitely keep any kind of greeting or salutation brief. And then, if you employ those signaling practices, what's great about that is to be honest. 143 00:28:54.810 --> 00:29:24.449 Lauren Dana: I read it kind of skim over that part and then get to the meat of the email, which would be the bulleted, the highlighted all of that. So that's something to think about that. If you compose your email using some of our best practices, it gives you a little more freedom with expressing yourself in the beginning. But yeah, it's definitely personality based. If you're someone that that's important to, I know I am. I always put hope you're doing well. So whatever fits your needs? But so I think that's just something to consider. But I think that's a great question. 144 00:29:27.950 --> 00:29:38.090 Lauren Dana: Okay? So why, I know you only had a few minutes to work. I just wanted to quickly go over a couple of questions to think about as you take a look at your draft? 145 00:29:38.575 --> 00:29:40.710 Lauren Dana: So here are some questions to consider 146 00:29:42.140 --> 00:29:57.620 Lauren Dana: what was the main purpose of the email. So we know it was a welcome email, but it might. Some of you might be focusing more on future assignments, or how you access the course or where the course is located. So you want to consider what is the purpose of the email and consider this as you create the subject line. 147 00:29:58.670 --> 00:30:09.029 Lauren Dana: What is the most important information you want to convey to students. This should be the information that's towards the beginning of the email. And you should incorporate those appropriate signaling 148 00:30:09.280 --> 00:30:10.630 Lauren Dana: we've discussed. 149 00:30:12.350 --> 00:30:23.640 Lauren Dana: Can students scan your email. Take a look at your email. Can you look at it and pull out the important points quickly? Things that can help you do this or titled sections, bullet points and limited text. 150 00:30:24.132 --> 00:30:25.129 Lauren Dana: So just check. 151 00:30:29.960 --> 00:30:40.750 Lauren Dana: And finally, can you remove any unnecessary information? I know I'm incredibly verbose. So I tried to go back and cut at least 10 to 15% of the text from my 1st draft. 152 00:30:41.050 --> 00:30:43.530 Lauren Dana: So that's something to go back and take a look. 153 00:30:43.810 --> 00:30:58.959 Lauren Dana: So before we move forward, I wanted to see if anyone wanted to either share the changes that they've worked on, or even just in the chat. Maybe write any takeaways or changes that you made, whether it's to your welcome email or what you might make to future course emails. 154 00:30:59.331 --> 00:31:04.389 Lauren Dana: So just give everyone a couple of minutes. They want to share anything that they may have updated 155 00:31:04.990 --> 00:31:06.230 Lauren Dana: or revised. 156 00:31:08.080 --> 00:31:10.630 Lauren Dana: and if you have any brave soul who who wants to share it. 157 00:31:11.119 --> 00:31:14.489 Lauren Dana: Full email in the chat. That'd be great. But that's okay, if not 158 00:31:25.020 --> 00:31:34.110 Lauren Dana: okay. Great. So heather excellent. Yes, Heather said, my email's already concise, but it wasn't easily scannable, so she bolded some of it. 159 00:31:34.910 --> 00:31:43.439 Lauren Dana: Great Carrie removed a lot of information, and instead shared a hyperlink great. That was one of Celine's pro tips. Excellent, where all the information could be found. Great Carrie! 160 00:31:43.730 --> 00:31:47.019 Lauren Dana: Oh, looks like heather! Shared the link. Thank you. Heather. Yay! 161 00:31:51.020 --> 00:31:56.939 Lauren Dana: Oh, great Stephanie! Yes, never done a welcome email. So this is an excellent nudge. Yeah, it's a great place to start. Good. 162 00:31:57.890 --> 00:32:03.660 Lauren Dana: all great. We have. Mia, so she has. I won't read the whole thing, but she has her salutation. 163 00:32:03.700 --> 00:32:11.929 Lauren Dana: Excellent! I love it so. I love how Mina or mia does the numbers to kind of help organize, and then the bullet points great. 164 00:32:12.710 --> 00:32:14.359 Lauren Dana: This is excellent mia 165 00:32:14.860 --> 00:32:23.449 Lauren Dana: Amy. Parse down information into actionable bullet points. That's a great great tip to Amy is everything they put in bullet points is an action that they have to take. 166 00:32:25.060 --> 00:32:28.889 Lauren Dana: Oh, that's okay. Mia, yeah. The chat. The chat box messes up the for format. 167 00:32:30.220 --> 00:32:52.229 Lauren Dana: Excellent. Kathy reviewed a welcome email and notice that after a welcome section branched into new information about an upcoming event, great maybe split into 2 separate emails. Right? It's okay. I mean, we don't want to be bombarding our students with hourly emails. But it's okay to email them with some frequency. If you feel like the the email needs to stand alone. Excellent. Thank you, Kathy. 168 00:32:53.840 --> 00:33:09.030 Lauren Dana: Great, these are great. So before we move on, I just want to remind you that we do have 30 min of office hours after this session. If you want to keep working on your course, email or any email or any assignment instructions, with some support from Emily or me. 169 00:33:12.700 --> 00:33:34.530 Emily Haagenson: Overall. We hope you take away from this session some specific tips to attend purposely to your writing audience. Take care of your audience by presenting writing that's well organized, both clear and concise. Any questions, ideas, struggles related to course communication strategies that you want to discuss as a group. 170 00:33:34.530 --> 00:33:43.870 Emily Haagenson: Lauren and I are here to facilitate that conversation. We're also happy to discuss ways to best use course, plus to make these tips work for you 171 00:33:44.050 --> 00:33:56.799 Emily Haagenson: if you need to go. That's okay. But first, st let us tell you a little bit about the rest of the picnic Pd series. We still have one more session and other professional development opportunities offered by Ctl. 172 00:33:58.350 --> 00:34:18.009 Amy Pinkerton: Alright. Thank you, Lauren and Emily. First, st I want to invite you to complete this. Anonymous 2 min workshop evaluation survey. The your feedback really does matter to us. We use your feedback from these surveys to plan future workshops. So please take a moment. The link is in the chat. 173 00:34:18.350 --> 00:34:45.479 Amy Pinkerton: And then, as Emily mentioned, we have other picnic Pd sessions coming. So this was one of a series. We have one more left at the the last in the series is next week on using generative AI in your public health teaching. But if you're interested in any of the other topics that we've covered in the series. They're available on our on-demand workshops. Page. So you can go back and watch those recordings. 174 00:34:47.969 --> 00:35:12.379 Amy Pinkerton: And then I also wanted to mention that we have other professional development opportunities. So for faculty, we have an online, self-paced modular course called essentials. Of course, design, development and teaching at Bsp. Now this course, it's designed for faculty who are teaching at the school of Public health, but it could also be beneficial for faculty at other schools around the university. So check that 175 00:35:12.380 --> 00:35:26.020 Amy Pinkerton: that out. If you're a teaching assistant check out our teaching assistantship training course. That's also online and self paced. And at the end of that course you have the opportunity to receive a certificate of completion. 176 00:35:26.170 --> 00:35:47.759 Amy Pinkerton: And then, in addition to that. We also just have workshops like this one and on-demand videos and our Ctl blog. So if you're not looking for a whole course, but just a little snippet. We have resources for you in smaller chunks, so please check out. All of those links are in the chat. And again, thank you so much. Emily and Lauren. 177 00:35:54.230 --> 00:36:11.730 Lauren Dana: Great. So we're now gonna enter into our optional question and answer and office hours. So if you, if you need to leave, that's totally fine. Thank you so much for coming. And so at this point, I'm gonna stop the screen sharing, and see if anyone has any questions, thoughts or wanted to keep working on any of their emails with some support 178 00:36:11.770 --> 00:36:13.560 Lauren Dana: or assignment instructions. 179 00:36:18.070 --> 00:36:25.503 Heather Schwitalla: I'm happy to get feedback on that email that I shared that shared the link to. I have to put it up today. If I'm gonna use it. So. 180 00:36:28.160 --> 00:36:30.029 Lauren Dana: Great. I can do me to pull it up heather, and I can. 181 00:36:30.030 --> 00:36:32.980 Heather Schwitalla: Yeah, you can use it as a case study if you'd like. 182 00:36:35.620 --> 00:36:38.798 Lauren Dana: Okay, give me just a moment ago scroll all the way back through our okay. 183 00:36:39.010 --> 00:36:39.899 Heather Schwitalla: But I. 184 00:36:40.690 --> 00:36:41.750 Lauren Dana: Alright. 185 00:36:47.250 --> 00:36:48.929 Lauren Dana: Okay. So let me share our screen. 186 00:36:52.020 --> 00:36:53.440 Lauren Dana: Okay, can everyone see that. 187 00:36:55.378 --> 00:36:56.989 Emily Haagenson: Maybe zoom in a little Lauren. 188 00:36:57.470 --> 00:36:58.430 Lauren Dana: Let's see. 189 00:37:03.830 --> 00:37:04.600 Emily Haagenson: Yeah, better. 190 00:37:04.900 --> 00:37:05.500 Lauren Dana: That good! 191 00:37:06.180 --> 00:37:11.280 Celine Greene: Sorry. So is this gonna be part of the recording. And you're okay with that heather. 192 00:37:11.280 --> 00:37:11.630 Heather Schwitalla: Yes. 193 00:37:11.630 --> 00:37:12.890 Celine Greene: Showing that okay? 194 00:37:15.750 --> 00:37:16.300 Celine Greene: And I mean. 195 00:37:16.300 --> 00:37:21.249 Heather Schwitalla: We currently have it set to just viewer status. But 196 00:37:22.270 --> 00:37:25.910 Heather Schwitalla: I I can either type in the changes, or I can change the permissions. 197 00:37:28.336 --> 00:37:31.599 Heather Schwitalla: and I I'm not seeing the screen being shared any longer. 198 00:37:31.600 --> 00:37:33.790 Lauren Dana: Oh, no. Did I mess it up? I'm sorry. 199 00:37:34.210 --> 00:37:36.635 Lauren Dana: Here we go. Okay. Sorry. Everybody. 200 00:37:38.090 --> 00:37:40.627 Lauren Dana: okay, great. So we can workshop this. 201 00:37:43.010 --> 00:37:47.191 Lauren Dana: my 1st thought, I actually go right to this. This middle part. 202 00:37:47.760 --> 00:38:12.250 Lauren Dana: I don't know. Something I would recommend is breaking this down, using some of the signaling practices like bullet points, things like that, because right now it's a decent amount of text. And it seems like there's 3 clear topics that you want to go over. So the safe systems theory how to intervene, and then rounding out the course with with those 3. So I would consider putting that into bullet points. Does that make sense on our 1st module? 203 00:38:12.450 --> 00:38:13.310 Heather Schwitalla: Yeah. 204 00:38:13.470 --> 00:38:19.660 Heather Schwitalla: I was actually considering that but with the 2 and a half minutes I was like, I don't have enough time to do that. 205 00:38:19.720 --> 00:38:21.010 Heather Schwitalla: and I was also 206 00:38:21.460 --> 00:38:25.902 Heather Schwitalla: struggling to think about how to introduce the bullets in a way that was 207 00:38:27.260 --> 00:38:28.219 Lauren Dana: Sorry guys, sorry. 208 00:38:28.832 --> 00:38:33.809 Heather Schwitalla: In in in a way that was efficient. Like may like made sense to introduce it. 209 00:38:34.155 --> 00:38:37.869 Heather Schwitalla: So I started out with the building to see how that would go. 210 00:38:38.389 --> 00:38:42.010 Heather Schwitalla: So I guess the per. The place where I struggled was 211 00:38:42.950 --> 00:38:45.139 Heather Schwitalla: how to introduce the bullet points. 212 00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:46.260 Heather Schwitalla: You know. 213 00:38:48.001 --> 00:38:50.800 Heather Schwitalla: Like I love a good list of bullet points. 214 00:38:51.320 --> 00:39:00.090 Emily Haagenson: Sometimes heather. I just put a colon right in our 1st module. We'll introduce Colon and then start the list. Yeah. 215 00:39:00.290 --> 00:39:09.159 Emily Haagenson: but you know, I think there are multiple ways to do that. I have a drafted email as well. We went over the following items, Colon. And then I'm I'm listing. 216 00:39:09.160 --> 00:39:11.549 Heather Schwitalla: We'll go. We'll go over the following items. 217 00:39:11.550 --> 00:39:15.977 Emily Haagenson: Yeah, so I I definitely use that a lot. 218 00:39:17.240 --> 00:39:23.979 Emily Haagenson: and Kathy has a similar suggestion in the chat. Right in module one. We'll cover Colon. 219 00:39:24.070 --> 00:39:26.940 Emily Haagenson: So I think that that can be a good. 220 00:39:27.510 --> 00:39:51.890 Emily Haagenson: a good adjustment I will comment on, because I think you did a nice job like ready to get started. Check out. The course. Introduction, like redirecting with links, is always good. We could do it with depending on what level of access they have when they're receiving this email, you could do it with the discussion Forum as well. If you want, the easier it is 221 00:39:51.890 --> 00:39:57.760 Emily Haagenson: for my reader to access what I want them to access, the more likely they are to do it. So 222 00:39:57.760 --> 00:40:00.859 Emily Haagenson: possibly putting the discussion Forum as a link. 223 00:40:01.260 --> 00:40:06.140 Emily Haagenson: But Kathy's cat. Sorry, Kathy, yeah. 224 00:40:06.841 --> 00:40:10.458 Emily Haagenson: Kathy and I are on the same page. 225 00:40:11.560 --> 00:40:13.309 Heather Schwitalla: So this is for a course.