AHSE: Immediacy: Communication Strategies to Connect, Engage, and Retain Your Students

Speakers: Adria Battaglia & Honor Anderson 

Time: Feb 16th, 12-1 pm 

Location: LIB 400 or Zoom 

RSVP: Due by 1 pm, Feb 13th

Learning Objectives: 

By the end of this session, you will be able to 

1. Explain the benefits of immediacy in learning. 

1. Identify strategies that build immediacy in the classroom (whether face-to-face or online) 

1. Create (or reframe) an activity that intentionally builds immediacy with your students. 

 Abstract: 

Immediacy. It’s usually understood as communication that shows a positive affect towards someone (Hess, n.d.). You may have learned about ways to build immediacy between patient and provider, but have you thought about ways to build immediacy with your students?  

Whether in person or online, immediacy can help develop rapport, foster trust, and increase a student’s positive perception of their relationship with you, other students, the course content, and even the discipline. Immediacy can facilitate healthier interactions between instructors and students. For example, it can reduce student apprehension and student complaints (Mazer & Stowe, 2016).  Immediacy can help students feel better supported by their instructor and better mentored (Kerssen-Griep & Witt, 2015). It can also increase a student’s “liking” of the course and instructor, which can promote higher evaluations of instructor credibility (Witt & Kerssen-Griep, 2011).  

Join us for an interactive session where you can learn, deepen, and practice your verbal and nonverbal immediacy skills.