One weird trick for teaching remote classes.

April 27, 2020 6:46 AM

To those teaching university classes via videoconferencing: what tips or techniques are working for you?

I recently started a class by asking everyone to 'tell me something good', and having them answer with personal good things, or something they heard, etc. It worked as an ice breaker and I felt it made the class less impersonal and more positive.

What have you tried successfully to improve your online classes? What other questions could I ask to make people feel engaged?

I'm teaching a design workshop, so it's very one on one, not so much me lecturing, if that makes a difference.

posted by signal to Education (6 answers total)

Hi! I'm a graphic design professor in higher ed who has moved to online teaching with COVID-19.

So, to start with some context - I am teaching mostly Senior-level courses, and I had the students in class for about nine weeks before we had to move to video/online. I teach a two semester graduating sequence where students take courses with me back-to-back, so one of my groups has already worked with me in the Fall '19 semester.

I note all of that to say that I recognize I have some built-in advantages: students who already have a relationship with me, advanced students, major students, etc.

So, with my classes, I try to have at least one, if not two, group sessions a week. We use WebEx through Canvas. Then I make a shared Google Doc and invite students to sign up for one-on-one chats with Google Hangouts. I try to make lots of available times, much more than I would have for office hours, because honestly very few students are signing up for those. But it has run the entire gamut of my enrollment. Basically, almost every student has signed up for at least one Google Hangout time, but only a small handful seem to want to do it every week.

The combo of the group WebEx and the solo Google Hangouts have kept everyone engaged. I've got every student in all of my classes still turning in homework so far.

Our usual classes are three hours long, since they are design studios. When it's in-person we kinda lecture/demo/seminar for the first hour and then I do one-on-one chats around the computer lab for the next two hours, while everyone sits and works. In the group WebEx, I can still lecture, and I can still demo, but the seminar portion has fallen off a cliff. When I am in-person, I spend the most energy on soliciting conversation from each student. My students can't all use the video portion of WebEx due to disparities in Internet availability, so it's much harder for me to gauge when I can get someone to talk.

So, I do WebEx sessions for an hour and then pick up with people individually in the Google Hangouts. I did simplify my assignments a little bit.

I do think it's helpful to be positive for the students. I have a bit of a mantra that I tend to restate in different ways in every WebEx (group session): "There are people who have experienced stress, hardship, and even loss over our current situation, and some of those people might be in our group right now. But I do want to tell you that there will be a tomorrow. We will work lots of things out, and you will still be able to move forward in your careers. It may not look quite like you thought it would, especially at first, but communities everywhere pull together in times like this and figure things out." I sometimes talk to students about the struggles I had when I first graduated from college, and struggles I have had throughout my career, to let them know that even people who like they've "made it" still have problems and setbacks. When I first graduated from college, I put together various odd jobs for the first six to nine months, including cleaning offices at night. And there's nothing wrong with that! Then I spend five years working as a designer for ad agencies and other agency-like environments. I decided I would prefer to teach - then it took my three years of grad school and three years in the wrong University to finally get to be in the position where I am teaching my current students! It took me eleven years to get in the job I didn't know I was looking for all along. The only students that have commented on the fact that I say this have thanked me for being positive, fwiw.

So, I always try to keep the students focused on the future, even before this all happened. It works well for me to move them off a "grade" or "what does the professor want" mentality and toward a "what kinds of opportunities do I want in the future" mentality.
posted by Slothrop at 7:38 AM on April 27, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm not an instructor, but I have lots of experience with distance learning design. The model I've seen work best for something like a design workshop is to try to keep it a mix of 50/50 synchronous/asynchronous communication. So days might alternate between a video meeting and posting to an online forum (where students are encouraged/required to interact with each other, not just you). Day after day of group video meetings with people talking over each other off the cuff just isn't the same as a flow of communication in-person. Letting people ruminate and post better thought out things on their on schedule tends to have better quality, as least with engaged students.

Also, this probably doesn't apply as much to a design workshop, but if you have lecture content that you're creating that won't really have any flow from the students to you or each other while you're presenting, prerecord as much as that as possible and let them watch on their own schedule so that you can get live classes as focused on quality interaction that can only happen live as possible.
posted by Candleman at 8:07 AM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

A simple tip: take advantage of the polling/question software built into some video conference software programs. For example, I set up an anonymous check in question along the lines of “Does this make sense?” and let them answer yes, no, sorta.
posted by bluedaisy at 8:18 AM on April 27, 2020

My main goal is to have discrete tasks that the students "lead" (i.e., not me talking at them), usually 2-3 per 1 hour session. Having them prepare stuff in advance to present works well. Assigning reading and getting them to brainstorm their main ideas taken from the texts is good. Setting up debates on a topic, half the group for and half against.

If the software you're using has shared whiteboard that can be fun to use for contributions. I've also used breakout rooms to decent effect- different groups discussing different things or doing different tasks and then reporting back.

I've also run "live sessions" where everyone is working on something "irl" by themselves but whilst logged in to the webinar, where they can choose to share their progress or get feedback if they like. This can give something of the vibe of a studio.

The main thing is having a road map of the session worked out in advance, and setting prior tasks for them to bring to the session. I believe this is called "flipped" learning, where the content is digested by themselves first, and then discussed and worked with in the session.
posted by Balthamos at 9:17 AM on April 27, 2020 [2 favorites]

Agreeing with all of the frontloading of info... make it so that your students come to class prepared to do something with all of the knowledge or skills they've been learning through content you push out asynchronously.

I start my classes with somewhat more specific questions, usually from ideas I pick up over the politics and COVID threads. What is one thing you want to leave behind after this is over? What is one change you hope we keep? What is the first store--not restaurant--that you want to go to? What is one thing you will change about yourself because of this (maybe a hobby)? Simple, yes, but always forward looking and couched in the positive. I'm not trying to have huge discussions about inequity and structural racism in an online class, though.

I know this might sound ridiculous or condescending, but planning ahead, and planning activities to do. Zoom's breakout rooms work really well, and already mentioned, the polls and interactive parts. Depending on length you could even do jigsaw sessions and have them "teach." If it's something related to design you could share a Slides presentation, have them contribute one slide, and then talk about it in class.

Voicethread is good if you have a pro account; you can record audio over a slide show (Slides or PPT or whatever) and then students watch/listen and can comment with a sticky note, another recording, or a text box. It's cool because you can record a segment for one slide at a time. This is great for asynchronous learning, and you can extend the conversations into your next class session.

Some more nefarious instructors (aka friends of mine) will pose a random question in the middle of class to be answered in the chat. This ensures the students are paying attention and can serve as an informal or formative assessment. It can also be a way to take attendance, if you do that. Another friend will give instructions in the live session and then delete them from the slide. She replaces the text with instructions to email her for the prompt. If they are tuning in later they have to email her for the instructions. This way she knows who is watching and paying attention if they can't make the synchronous session.

And don't forget you can watch videos, annotate, and play with your sessions. Have them do graffiti on a document? Use the annotate feature to take group notes, and then have them download the annotated image?
posted by Snowishberlin at 11:01 AM on April 27, 2020 [1 favorite]

Get your students to ask questions via the chat function of your video conference platform. You'll find that some people will ask questions who would normally be hesitant.
posted by jacobean at 1:17 PM on April 28, 2020