ZOOM BOOM! Maximising virtual lessons

Using a virtual platform requires as much planning, preparation and expectation as a regular lesson. Of course there are differences to a face to face context, but like any good learning sequence, being aware of pedagogical principles will ensure the session is an active, useful learning experience.

HOSTING A SUCCESSFUL ZOOM SESSION REQUIRES 3 ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS:

• knowing the tech
• preparing the students and the session
• managing the session

Knowing the tech

At Adelaide University we have developed a range of resources that will take the academic from the basics of downloading zoom to their computer to being able to proficiently place students into virtual breakout classrooms here. I know many other Universities also have good resources, like this one from UQ. We recommend the following:

• Set yourself small goals in mastering one aspect of the tool at a time.
  • Practice amongst your peers and learn about the functionality of the platform.
  • Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that your skill using the tech will improve considerably with practice, and that you what may seem overwhelming now, will be an automatic teaching method soon.

Preparing the students and the session

• Students:
  • make sure the students understand the tech.
  • Provide clear and explicit instructions how to download and use the tool – we have developed these already.
  • Provide clear and explicit expectations about participation and etiquette.

In the end, the online session is still a classroom, and the behaviours for learning you would expect in a classroom to maximise learning are the ones you should expect and demand in a virtual setting. As soon as your expectations drop because you aren’t confident that the setting can produce learning, then you’ll lose the student engagement.  

• The session: it is imperative that you are clear what the objectives of the session are. Is the goal to teach a new idea, check for understanding, to correct misconceptions, to extend thinking or simply to practice and consolidate existing knowledge? When used in conjunction with a recorded lecture in Echo 360, or a pre-loaded or flipped activity in a discussion board, the zoomed tutorial is often used to check for understanding. Have clear sectioned elements to the tutorial:
  • a recap of the last session (an introductory retrieval quiz is best)
  • a modelled example to introduce the desired content
  • opportunity for students to demonstrate their understanding
  • opportunity for students to ask questions
  • opportunity to practise

Managing the session

Always remember the session is an opportunity for learning, and what you would do in a regular learning context is what has to be applied here too.

• Start on time – have students login 5 minutes before the start so you are not waiting for stragglers and being interrupted when the tutorial begins by having to add them manually to the session. The waiting room can have the session rules attached as seen above.
• As soon as the session begins have students complete a recap quiz – also provides something for punctual students to do whilst you’re waiting for others to join. Retrieval is everything in learning!
• Go through answers briefly
• Discuss the expectations and rules of engagement of the current session. Repeat these many times over lots of sessions, so the process eventually becomes automatic for students.
• Be friendly and encouraging – and patient whilst students become familiar with the process
• Go through an example similar in difficulty to the pre-loaded activity as a warm up, narrating your workings. See here for more on the power of worked examples.
• Present the pre-loaded activity
• Check for understanding
  1. By asking questions: don’t take one or 2 student responses as an indication of the whole group’s understanding. See here for how to ask the right questions.
  2. By getting students to upload or show their learning,
• Use at least 2 student examples to provide feedback – discussing their strengths and weaknesses will be another teaching moment
• Present another activity of analogous difficulty to strengthen understanding. Consider breaking cohort into homogeneous groups, have them discuss the problem and present a consensus back to the main cohort’s discussion page.  
• Present a final activity that is harder

Successful Zoom sessions will offer you a unique opportunity to check for understanding or to extend student knowledge.  It also offers an opportunity to place yourself in the shoes of the learner, the learner who is constantly introduced to a lot of new content and problems and may feel overwhelmed at times in the process. The more conscious you are of helping students manage the cognitive load when introducing new material, the better you will design and sequence that learning. Concomitant with that is articulating your method and helping students become stronger at understanding the metacognitive process.

Mastering Zoom will take practice, but that’s like everything you first began.

I’m Paul Moss. I’m a learning designer. Follow me @edmerger