Setting the Tone: Co-Creating Communication Norms for Inclusive Online Classrooms

Every student arrives in an online course with their own sense of what "respectful" or "professional" communication looks like, shaped by culture, prior schooling, workplace norms, and plenty of other things for which an instructor often has no insight.

Some students were taught that being direct is a sign of confidence. Others learned that being direct without softening language is considered rude. Neither is wrong, but a course that never names its own expectations for communication or models it, leaves students to guess which version applies here and guessing wrong can carry a social cost.

Left unaddressed, ambiguity won’t resolve itself. It might influence who feels comfortable speaking up and who decides it's safer to stay quiet. This is why communication expectations matter as much as content guidelines. 

Here's how to set the tone you want for students, without leaving it to chance. 

1. State the tone you expect, plainly.

• Be explicit: State clearly that all course communications, including discussion posts, emails, and group chats, must remain respectful, even during intense disagreements (Gilbert & Dabbagh, 2005). 

• Create an anchor: Name your baseline expectations and give students a clear reference point to go back to, should discussions derail later in the semester.

2. Let students help write the norms.

• Use a first-week prompt: Ask a low-stakes question such as, "What would make you feel safe sharing an unpopular opinion in this class?"

• Build a shared agreement: Collect common themes from student responses and condense them into a short, shared community agreement for the semester (Tanner, 2013).

3. Offer light guidance on written style.

• Reduce misread intent: Ask students to avoid heavy shorthand, jargon, or all-caps emphasis, which might unintentionally read as aggressive or unprofessional to different audiences.

• Frame as guidance: Present these suggestions as helpful strategies for effective communication rather than a rigid rulebook (Mintu-Wimsatt, Kernek, & Lozada, 2010).

4. Make room for different communication styles.

• Acknowledge differences: Explicitly note that variations in conversational pacing, directness, and eye contact are expected and valued.

• Normalize variety: Reframe these variations as natural differences rather than behaviors that need correction (Gay, 2010).

5. Give students a clear path if something feels off.

• Set up early reporting: Ensure students know exactly how and where to flag a comment or interaction that felt inappropriate before an incident happens. What do you want them to know, do, or alert you?

• Reduce friction: Provide a clear avenue for feedback to head off minor misunderstandings and avoid escalating into larger classroom issues (Edmondson, 1999).

Why it matters

A syllabus that details learning outcomes but ignores how students communicate and interact is missing a major component of course success.

Co-creating communication guidelines builds genuine accountability and surfaces important perspectives you might not have considered on your own. Pairing a short communication statement with an interactive first-week prompt or two can positively shape classroom climate more intentionally than the standard policy page. 

References

Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.

Gay, G. (2010). Culturally Responsive Teaching: Theory, Research, and Practice (2nd ed.). Teachers College Press.

Gilbert, P. K., & Dabbagh, N. (2005). How to structure online discussions for meaningful discourse: A case study. British Journal of Educational Technology, 36(1), 5–18.

Mintu-Wimsatt, A., Kernek, C., & Lozada, H. R. (2010). Netiquette: Ethic, education, and behavior on internet. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 6(1), 262–270.

Tanner, K. D. (2013). Structure matters: Twenty-one teaching strategies to promote student engagement and cultivate classroom equity. CBE - Life Sciences Education, 12(3), 322–331.