Golden Tips for Facilitating Active Learning in Zoom
Here are a few tips to encourage active learning and keep students engaged in your OnlineLIVE Zoom class:
The Prominent Pause
Have you ever noticed how things start to feel a little uncomfortable when you have a pause for a particular amount of time? Well, that means you should keep pausing. Your students need time to respond. They need time to reflect on what you've asked, filter through their thoughts, identity what they would like to share, and then indicate to you they want to share or type it into the chat. That is a lot! So when you ask for questions or volunteers, make the pauses long and prominent. You'll be amazed how this works!
Who ate pizza last? (or, how to make breakout rooms less socially awkward)
It's really important to understand that breakout rooms are socially awkward. They can pique anxiety for some students. A lot of this improves after the first experience when the uncertainty diminishes. One way you can help is to provide a fun, non-academic prompt to help students start talking in the room. For example, if you are doing a small group discussion of some type, you can ask students to determine who ate pizza most recently and have that person share first, then have that person choose who shares next. This is a fun way to help students get to know each other. Other question ideas are, who had a birthday most recently or who completed a series on Netflix most recently. What else can you think of?
Giving Directions for the Breakout Room Activity
If you were to sit down and talk with students about what really happens in a breakout room, you might be surprised to discover how many times students are unclear about what they are expected to do in the breakout room. If you are planning to use breakout rooms in a class session, type up the directions for the breakout room activity and share them with students via a link before you activate the breakout rooms. This can be done by using a Google Doc (grant View access to "anyone who has the link") or you could simply create a page in your Canvas course and give students the URL (link) to that page. The key is to require students to confirm that they have the instructions. Consider saying something like, "OK. I just put the link in the chat that contains the directions for the breakout room activity. Click on that link. Once you have the directions open on your screen, click Reactions and choose Yes." Then look at your Participant list to verify when everyone has signaled Yes. You can work directly. with students who might be struggling. This process will get easier and faster as your course progresses and students get more familiar with the steps.
These resources are part of the College of the Canyons Intro to OnlineLIVE Teaching & Learning Course, adapted from Introduction to Live Online Teaching & Learning by CVC-OEI Links to an external site., licensed under a CC-BY Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License Links to an external site..