In the 2020s, text-based online classes simply won’t do. Students expect to see and hear their professors. You can find tips on how to record quality lecture videos for all your assigned readings here and here. But at the very least set aside an hour to make a beginning-of-semester welcome vid. Doing so will add a human touch to an otherwise tech-heavy experience, and reassure the class that there’s a living, breathing, caring person behind that Blackboard/Canvas/Brightspace curtain.
You’ll hear me reiterate this in the second link above, but know that your video doesn’t have to be perfect. If you stutter, mispronounce something (just not “Kant” – phil profs aren’t allowed to mispronounce Kant), or repeat yourself, so what? Your students will simply appreciate being able to see you. Of course, if your mistakes are too embarrassing, that’s what second (and third, and tenth) takes are for. Delete and re-record until you’re content. But strive for excellence, not perfection – do the best you can with your current abilities, whatever they are, and leave it at that.
Pick an interesting setting (outdoor backgrounds are nice, walking is even better), aim for ten minutes max (longer and viewership will drop), and do your best to be your friendly, inviting, awesomely philosophical self. You’ll be tempted to speak more eloquently, appear more knowledgeable and generally inflate your on-camera persona. Resist, for it’s hard to connect a pompous know-it-all, especially with a screen between you. Do organize your thoughts. Do rehearse. But allow yourself to be vulnerably you.
What to say? Think about what you naturally discuss on the first day: your background and interests, how the material will build and unfold, the major assignments. My own online classes (Ethics Intro, Philosophy as Conversation, Phil Intro/Critical Thinking) tend to attract students from a variety of backgrounds – declared philosophy majors are a rarity. Many (possibly most) arrive not even knowing what academic philosophy is. But hey, I didn’t know what philosophy was before college, either, and so gladly use the opportunity to introduce it.
I pitch our beloved discipline as “the reason-based attempt to answer life’s big, non-empirical questions” – questions concerning the ultimate nature of reality, the limits of human knowledge, the basic rules of reasoning, how we ought to behave, etc. I’ll usually liken it to something they already understand – science – with both approaches logical and methodical, but with philosophy lacking the luxury of testable data (that’s the non-empirical part). Their primary tools – scopes. Our primary tool – our thinkers. You can explain it however you see fit. But do explain, especially for 100 and 200-level courses.
If you teach in the Bible Belt (like me), consider dispelling the myth that philosophy is necessarily hostile to religion. Students sometimes get warnings from family and church friends about militantly atheist phil profs – profs like the insecure egomaniac depicted in God’s Not Dead (boogey boogey!).They need to be reassured that movie was for pretend, not a documentary. Similarly, if you’ll be discussing ethics or political philosophy, consider confessing your liberal communist agenda, or lack thereof. You’ll have to earn (and re-earn) your students’ trust over the course of the semester. But airing these common stereotypes will show that you’re both aware of and relaxed enough to discuss them. This will cause their guard to drop and make them easier to corrupt – moohoohahaha!
One warning: your welcome video isn’t the time to share the late assignment penalties or threaten plagiarizers with bodily harm. Be cordial and warm, smile, introduce your dog. Save the intimidation until after attendance reporting.
For some examples, here’s a welcome vid I made back in 2014. Here’s one from 2017. And here’s one from spring 2020. I got better (and grew a scraggly beard). So will you (not necessarily on the beard).
Last, if you’d like to do this but are having trouble, shoot me an email at matt (at) mattdeaton.com. I’d be happy to help. But do give it a shot. Your students want and deserve to see you. And the deeper we get into the 2020s, the more likely they’re going to expect it.
Matt Deaton
Matt Deaton is an adjunct professor who's taught exclusively online since 2013. An Air Force veteran and AYSO soccer coach, he's authored five books including Ethics in a Nutshell: The Philosopher’s Approach to Morality in 100 Pages and The Best Public Speaking Book. Editor of the APA Blog's Syllabus Showcase series, find him blogging elsewhere online at EthicsBowl.org.
