1.2 Direct Instruction / Proactively Connecting with Students

Learning Objective: Faculty can name RSI practices that meet federal guidelines and Highline College RSI review criteria.

 Introduction

There are four categories of substantive interaction, as defined by the federal regulations. Starting with this page, we'll delve into each category in detail, with examples of how to engage in those practices. We'll also provide links to pages from EdTech's Online Teaching course that describe related pedagogical practices in more detail. 

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

• direct instruction / proactively inviting students to connect;
• 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."

 Proactively Inviting Students to Connect

In the regulation, this category of RSI is called Direct Instruction. That implies that only live instruction using a tool like Zoom would meet the standards. A more nuanced approach suggests other options, which is why we have renamed this "proactively inviting students to connect." 

Accepted RSI practices include:

• proactively inviting students to attend regularly scheduled office hours or schedule a 1:1 meeting with you 
  • The invitation could be a text announcement, a video, an email to the whole class, a personalized email to specific students, through "message students who", in the Gradebook... you get the idea. The whole class gets an invitation.
    
  • Note that posting office hours in the syllabus doesn't meet the standard for interaction.
• meeting with students during regularly scheduled office hours or by appointment
• hosting live (in person or over Zoom) review or work sessions
• meeting with students for tours of the library, to learn about the academic success center, to take a workshop on digital literacy, etc.
  

Note: Students aren’t required to participate in the office hours or review sessions. Offering invitations to students meets the regulatory requirements. The interaction is an opportunity to connect, not a requirement that students must go. 

A Note About Video Lectures

Video lectures are a common online teaching practice and can have a lot of value for students in their learning process. But, on their own, video lectures are not a substantive interaction for the purposes of RSI. This can be a really confusing thing (since the Department of Education named this category direct instruction but then specifically named that online lecture with no interaction does not meet this criteria). Filmed videos or lectures lack an interactive component necessary in the "interactions" portion of RSI. Should you still do them? Probably. Can you count them as RSI? No.

But, there are some ways to expand a video lecture into a substantive assignment that would count for the purposes of RSI. These  would still not qualify under the "direct instruction" category, but would count in one of the other three.

• Create an assignment based on the video where student either respond to a question or ask questions about the video. Then, reply to the questions students are asking using the "comments" feature in Canvas Speedgrader. This creates an interaction (that can keep going because students can reply to your comment in Speedgrader and share even more information or ask further questions). This would satisfy the RSI category of "providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course." 
• If you take note of the pattern of questions you are getting from students, you may notice a concept or misconception that you want to address to the entire class. You could make a class announcement and state "This is a question or wondering I received from a few students, so I wanted to address it in an announcement." This would satisfy the RSI category of "providing information or responding to questions about the content of a course." 
• Create an discussion post based on the video where student either respond to a question, ask questions about the video, or summarize their understanding of the lecture. You can then join the discussion post and ask questions, clarify thinking, offer resources, or address misconceptions about the topic. This would satisfy the RSI category of "facilitating a group discussion regarding the course content." 

 Examples

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