Explicit, shared rules of communication are even more important in a flex-hybrid course than in a purely in-person classroom.
It’s a good idea to either state the rules clearly in your syllabus or work with your students to develop communication rules together (this is a great way to foster community). You can discuss rules together and designate one student the note-taker. Students can also easily be asked to collaborate on creating classroom rules using a shared Google Doc [link to post about how to do Miriam’s technique].
Regardless of how you do it, there are a few important communication logistics that you and your students should agree on together:
How do you raise your hand?
Is chat allowed, and if so, for what?
What are appropriate ways to react to what others have said?
Both Zoom and Google Meet now have “raise hand” features.
Don’t underestimate the value of chat or dismiss/ban it as a distraction! Chat can be used formally to share links, documents, polls, and so on. You can let it become a lively forum for side conversations and comments.
Allowing chat as a “side channel” of communication might mean some students miss some of what’s happening on the “main screen”, but it’s a way to foster greater connection and community among students - particularly for introverts.
Zoom even allows you, as the “host” of a class session, to determine to whom your students can send messages. For example, you can allow students to private-message others in the meeting, or you can limit the use of “chat” so that students can only post public comments to the entire class.
Zoom and Meet both offer a way for meeting participants to provide non-verbal feedback to speakers.
One way to make discussion rules for video or hybrid class meetings easier to manage and enforce is to make active discussion groups smaller - by meeting once a week for synchronous discussion with small groups of students, by using breakout groups, or by using techniques such as the “fishbowl”, in which small groups of students take turns having a discussion in front of the rest of the class.
You can learn more about managing virtual breakout groups here.