Async courses are how many business school faculty are scaling. They also break in a specific way: students drift, the middle of the semester goes quiet, and you're not sure whether anyone is still with you. We talked to Velma Zahirovic-Herbert at the University of Memphis about what actually works.
Key takeaways
- Async doesn't mean "turn it in whenever". Set expectations early and repeat them.
- Voice memos get more honest student questions than email.
- Front-load office hours before deadlines, not after.
1. Async isn't "turn it in whenever": students need to hear that out loud
Async means students learn at their own pace. It does not mean assignments are due when they feel like it. Velma sees this gap show up in the first two weeks of every semester, and she addresses it head-on.
Her opening-week routine: a written timeline of every module, every deadline, every assessment, posted to the LMS before the semester starts. Then a restatement of the same timeline in the first announcement of the term, the third announcement, and at every module transition. Repetition is the point.
"Some students learn well in a self-paced environment. Others need much more support. So I set expectations clearly, and often."
Velma Zahirovic-Herbert, University of Memphis
For instructors used to syllabus-once, this can feel excessive. In Velma's experience, it is the difference between a class that drifts in week six and a class that stays on pace.
2. A current-events nudge can save a flagging module
Students respond to real-world hooks. Velma uses news stories to make abstract finance and real-estate concepts stick.
Her cadence: an announcement before each new module to give it shape. Then, three or four days later, a follow-up post with a relevant article from a popular-press source, framed to land while the module's concepts are still fresh.
This is not filler. It is the moment a student recognizes the textbook idea in the world, and that recognition is what makes the concept stay.
If sourcing articles every week feels like one more thing, Blended Teaching's in-platform news feed surfaces relevant pieces for each module automatically. It's a new feature, just launched.
3. Mid-semester video fatigue is real, and predictable
If you're recording every video yourself, by mid-semester students have heard a lot of your voice. The novelty is gone. Engagement dips. Velma's fix: vary the source.
In her courses she rotates her own video chapters with content from other instructors and primary-source material. The variety is not decoration. It gives students a reason to keep clicking through.
If sourcing and vetting third-party video isn't realistic on top of everything else, this is what we built Blended Teaching's video chapters for. A full semester of cinematic content per course, integrated into Canvas and Blackboard, free for instructors.
4. Voice memos beat email for confused students
The most under-used engagement tool in async is also the simplest. Velma noticed that students rarely ask for help in writing. A half-page email asking for clarification feels like too much work, so it doesn't get sent.
A voice memo is different. Both for her sending one and for the student sending one back.
"Students don't want to write a half-page email about something they're confused about. If I leave a voice memo, on Canvas or in their inbox, they're much more likely to respond. And they tell me more about what they don't understand."
Velma Zahirovic-Herbert, University of Memphis
In practice this means a 60-second voice note in the LMS inbox when you see a student stuck on a quiz, instead of typing out an essay. Canvas and Blackboard both support attachable audio.
5. Pre-project office hours fill up. Post-project ones don't.
Velma scheduled her Zoom office hours both before and after a major project, and the pattern was immediate: the before sessions filled up, the after sessions were empty.
The lesson is straightforward. Feedback loops have to happen inside the work, not after it. Schedule office hours when students are stuck, not after they're done.
Her revised cadence is weekly office hours timed against the module rhythm rather than the project rhythm. Smaller, more regular touch points beat one big debrief no one comes to.
6. Your most engaged students are also your sharpest reviewers
The instinct after every semester is to keep what worked and quietly drop what didn't. Velma flips this. She explicitly asks her two or three most engaged students each semester what would have made the course better.
Their answers are usually specific in a way no end-of-semester survey is. Instead of "the readings were long," you get "the week-five discussion prompt asked the same question as the week-three quiz, and I noticed."
Take those notes. Reshape the next semester. Engaged students stay engaged when they see you act on their feedback.
A note on what doesn't work: forcing engagement
Velma's strongest take, which we agree with, is that engagement can't be coerced. Mandatory discussion-board posts graded for word count, "watched the video?" attestations, attendance-based participation grades. These turn students into compliance optimizers, not learners.
The six tactics above all share the same shape: make the engaged option the easy option, make the lazy option visible to the student themselves, and trust them to choose. It works because it has to work. The alternative is policing.
