How can I do RSI?

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 about that. Let's look at each of these. 

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 asking if the student is okay.
  • "Message Students Who..." options in the Canvas grade book Links to an external site. 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. 
  • Course Analytics Links to an external site. in Canvas can show you who is interacting with the course, and in what areas.  If you would like to message students who have a specific overall course grade, contact EdTech for information about how to enable New Course Analytics.

Requiring a First Week Assignment

The best first week assignments serve multiple purposes. They establish that the student has engaged with the course, they serve as an attendance verification, and they give you a chance to learn more about the student's prior knowledge or connection to the subject, and some of the assets they bring to the class. 

We don't go into detail here, but recommend that you check out The First Week Assignment page in the Canvas Orientation/Advanced Canvas course. The main thing to remember is that the assignment must be substantive to meet ED (and Highline) requirements.

Interacting with Students

Proactively inviting student 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. You can learn more about tactics for this in the Remote Teaching Course. 
  • 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.
  • Creating weekly review videos, paired with discussions in which you participate. These should be customized for the work students did that quarter. For instance, a video that goes over a homework assignment and discusses common misunderstandings or challenges is a great teaching technique.  These can be recorded in Panopto or another tool. 

Note: Students aren’t required to participate. However, the instructor has to offer multiple invitations 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:

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:

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.”