Live Interactions

Key Points:

• Do live interactions periodically, even if all students are not able to attend all the sessions.

• Have an interaction protocol in place. Briefly remind everyone of the protocol at the start of each session.

• Interact with students. Avoid lecturing or monologue (by anyone) in a live interaction.

• Answer questions posed by students AND pose questions for students to answer or activities for them to do.

What is a live interaction?

Why do live interactions?

Live interactions are necessary. They help the instructor to maintain a connection with the students, even if all students are not able to participate in them. Interacting only asynchronously on the course platform can lead to isolation and disinterest among students.

Live interactions could be done periodically, say once a week. After students have had time to go through the week's content uploaded on the platform, a live interaction is useful to hand-hold them in problem-solving, to address their doubts, and get feedback on the content itself. Getting students to send their questions in advance and addressing them systematically during the live interaction, or conducting a tutorial activity, lead to effective live interaction sessions.

How not to do live interactions?

It is not desirable to use live interactions as the primary mode of delivering content.

• Using live interactions as a 'substitute' for face-to-face class lectures is not effective. Unstable network connections and asymmetric bandwidth issues lead to unsatisfactory experience for students. Attention span issues and other distractions are also magnified in an online setting.

• Doing a lecture in a live interaction, recording it, and making it available to students, is also not effective. Lack of visual cues about the class response can hamper the instructor's delivery. Then there are issues of download size of large videos and so on.

How to conduct live interactions?

A live interaction can be conducted using tools such as Zoom, Meet and others. A few pedagogical best practices to keep in mind when conducting live interactions are:

• Schedule the session well in advance and share links to use for joining the video conferencing.

• Have an interaction protocol in place for the session. For example, mute microphones unless one is speaking, turn off video to save bandwidth (unless explicitly stated), specify how to ask for clarifications etc. Briefly remind students of these points at the start of every interaction.

• Assign a TA as a moderator. This will free up the instructor to focus on the content.

• Tell students to write their doubts in the chat window. This will enable many students to ask questions.

• Have a TA to manage the chat window. TA could indicate to the instructor which doubts need to be taken up for discussion in the session. TA could also answer some of the doubts using the chat window itself.

• Encourage students to speak up. Use different ways for students to say something. For example, most tools support hand-raise and chat. Get students to respond with thumbs up/down for simple yes/no questions, such as “Can you see my screen?”

• Use the features of the tool to make the session productive. For example, some tools allow shared annotation (like multiple people writing on the same board). Some tools support a breakout room feature to create small groups within the session, for group activities. Some tools support a poll feature to post a live quiz or do a quick survey, or get some feedback from students.

• In addition to using ‘share screen’ feature during the session for displaying slides or other material, share the materials in advance if possible. This will benefit students who may be dialing in on phone or accessing the session on low bandwidth channels. For example, the materials can be posted on the LMS or uploaded on Google drive and the link can be shared via the Discussion forum or email and at the beginning of the session.

• End the live interaction by asking students to post on chat their muddiest point, i.e., the point that was least clear to them. Address these on the course platform by creating supplementary material if required.

• Have a TA record the session, if required. TA could create a summary of the key points discussed in the session and post it on the course platform for the benefit of those who were unable to join the live interaction.

Technology tools for conducting live interactions

Tools that support Audio/Video interaction

Cisco WebEx is another conferencing platform. For a user manual on setting up and using WebEx click here.

Tools that support Text-based interaction:

Tools that support one-way broadcast with text-based return channel

• Youtube Live - See these how-to's [Video]

More information

You may refer this article for recommendations on choosing tools for online interaction. This article also provides a table with detailed features of the various online learning environemnts.

The 'Moving to online teaching' repository created by Educational Technology IIT Bombay contains a detailed set of tools, strategies and tips for conducting live interactions.