How can I incorporate live teaching in my online classes?

The flexibility of online learning makes it an appealing choice for busy students who are often juggling work, family, and other commitments. Although students appreciate the asynchronicity that online classes offer, they also miss opportunities to interact with their instructors. Quality online classes should provide opportunities for students to experience live teaching. That is, students need to do more than just interact with the content—they need opportunities to interact with their instructor and peers in real-time whenever and however possible. 

A note on holding mandatory synchronous sessions: Before requiring that students attend a synchronous session for an online class, check with your department chair to make sure that there is not a policy that prevents you from doing so. Online students have busy schedules, and some may even be in different time zones. If you do decide to hold mandatory meetings, make sure that the dates and times are included in the syllabus at the beginning of the semester so that students can arrange their schedules. In addition to obstacles concerning time zones and availability, consider whether students will have access to the technology (both hardware and software) that they will need to participate.  

Instructional Solutions

1. Consider conducting live synchronous sessions using a video conferencing platform such as Zoom, which is integrated into CourseDen. Although finding a convenient time for everyone to meet can be tricky, meeting with your students in real-time allows you to gauge their comprehension and investment.  Defining the purpose of these meetings ahead of time and having an agenda will lead to far more productive sessions. The focus could be providing opportunities for students to gather and discuss learning materials or to go over the expectations for upcoming assignments. Consider recording the session and posting it as an announcement for students who could not attend.

2. Group meetings can be very productive, but providing opportunities for students to meet with you one-on-one can significantly improve a student’s sense of motivation and investment in the course. When a student feels as though they are meeting the expectations of a human being and not just working through a set of tasks, they have more reasons to complete coursework. Still, getting students to meet with you during office hours can be challenging even in in-person classes. Announcing on your syllabus when and how you will be available to meet with students is a good first step. Again, using a video conferencing platform, you could tell your students that you will be available in the room in case anyone wants to pop in. To make office hours more inviting and less intimidating, some professors have started calling them “student hours” (Nadworny, 2019). 

3. You don’t always have to be present for students to learn! Vygotsky’s theory of proximal development states that students learn more with the presence of a more knowledgeable other. Zoom allows you to set up rooms for your students to use to meet at times that work for them. If you set their roles to moderators, you can ask that they record the meetings so that you can view them later in order to address any misconceptions/monitor their learning. 

4. When it comes to providing opportunities for you and your students to interact synchronously, think beyond video conferencing platforms. For instance, Google Chat is a way to have text-like conversations with your students through your OneUSG email account. Tell students that you will be available on Chat for a certain window of time if they want to send messages about any questions they might have. You could also create groups so that you send messages to the whole class. Some instructors even ask that the class do synchronous activities such as watching films and use Chat (or other texting apps) to communicate during that time. 

5. Live teaching doesn’t always have to be synchronous! You could use Yuja or Video Note (both tools are available in CourseDen) to record a video of yourself delivering mini-lectures and post them in the learning modules so that students can watch them on demand. Research shows that students prefer informal videos created by their instructors to professionally produced videos (Darby, 2019). Mini-lectures can simply be videos of you talking. Alternatively, you could record screen capture videos or create narrated PowerPoints that help students better comprehend the learning materials. 

6. In addition to recording mini-lectures that serve as learning materials, you could use the Announcements tool in CourseDen to post spontaneous updates for your students addressing questions that they have about upcoming assignments or offering whole-class feedback on assignments that you have just finished grading. Darby (2019) explains that these types of videos can have a powerful impact on students' online learning experiences. Many online instructors have commented that when they post these kinds of videos, they feel like they’re teaching, not just facilitating, their course.

Ed Tech Quick Guides

Creating a Zoom Session

Google Meet & Chat

Yuja

Narrated PowerPoints