Introduction

Welcome to this publicly-accessible, modified version of Highline's Regular and Substantive Interaction class. This course is a short primer to how to engage in Instructor-initiated Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI) in online classes. As you'll learn, RSI is a federally mandated practice in asynchronous online courses. At Highline, this refers to courses that are coded either as Asynchronous Online (OA) or Online Asynchronous w/In-person (OB).

An important note: Beyond the federal requirements, quality interaction between instructors and students is a key factor in student success, regardless of the mode of instruction. It's particularly important in online courses. Dr. Luke Wood and Dr. Frank Harris found that minoritized students faced success gaps in all courses, which were magnified in asynchronous courses. One of their recommendations for reducing the gap and creating structural change was increased instructor engagement with students.

This course is a lean version of information presented in the Initial RSI course that all instructors teaching online at Highline must take. This course serves more as a reference and resource for instructors who are teaching online and want to ensure they are maintaining RSI compliant practices in their course. These materials do not focus on the RSI Review that is done periodically for all instructors.

In addition, EdTech's online teaching course offers multiple ways for instructors to have meaningful, regular, and substantive interactions with students in an online course. Also, keep an eye out for workshops from the Learning and Teaching Center and EdTech.