In an online class, being aware of your students' situations, needs, and experiences is key to modeling empathy. You must intentionally make efforts to reach out and find out how things are going on the other side of the screen. This is where the magic of formative assessments come into play!

Student Info Form: In week one of your class, have students complete a Student Info Form. Some questions on the form could be "In one word, tell me how you are feeling about this class." When you peruse the answers to such questions, you will immediately know who needs your warm human touch and you can respond appropriately.
Rosebud and Thorn: Design ungraded Canvas assignments to encourage students to check in and share one "rosebud" (something that is going well) and one "thorn" (something that they're struggling with). In large classes, you might want to chunk this up to make it more manageable for you. For example, one week have students whose last names start with A-E respond, the next week F-L, etc.
Muddy and Clear: Use a Canvas survey and ask students to share one thing that they've learned and one thing that doesn't make sense to them yet. You can ask them to share anonymously (if you set them up this way), which can help some students to feel more comfortable sharing what they don't understand, as there is less risk of feeling judged by one's peers or instructor. Another option for Canvas surveys is to not make anonymous--peers do not see what is written, but you can see who needs what help. Any support you provide via SpeedGrader comments is immediately pushed out to the student through notifications. This can be a great way to ensure that your encouragement and support is seen by the student who needs it.

*You may choose to use other tools or methods to collect student responses and feedback.

**This page has been taken from the PLC 23 @ONE Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning Course.