Turning Isolation into Community: How NC State Faculty Bring Connection to Asynchronous Courses

Anyone who has taught an asynchronous course knows the feeling: you record the lectures, post the assignments, set up the discussion board, and still it can feel like your best work is disappearing into a void. Students sit isolated from one another, and the standard LMS discussion board, stiff and formal, does little to help. NC State DELTA Faculty Fellow Julianne Treme found that changed once she brought Yellowdig into her courses. 

Treme describes Yellowdig as a space that feels alive, where students engage with each other naturally rather than posting into silence. The familiar, social-style interface puts students at ease, and they begin sharing questions, resources, and ideas with real enthusiasm. In her course, Yellowdig counts for five percent of the grade, though she is quick to note that points are not what keeps students coming back. 

The most striking result was one she did not expect. Students started sharing their notes, posting photos of handwritten pages, links to shared documents, and tips on methods like the Cornell note-taking system and color coding. One student described learning to convert handwritten notes into searchable digital files; another shared a two-pass approach of watching each lecture once to absorb it and again to take notes. It became less about sharing knowledge and more about learning how to learn, in a space that felt like a real classroom. As Treme puts it, the platform works because students are actively engaged with the material and accountable to their peers, not just to her.