Engaging students: Other resources

It is useful to consider ways of actively involving students in online classes. As many have noted, Zoom fatigue is real. Incorporating more interactive elements into a lecture or discussion can help address this and keep students more engaged. 


 

ZOOM is one way for instructors to have live meetings with their students. Zoom has produced a short handout on Tips and Tricks: Teachers Educating on Zoom and a longer Comprehensive Guide to Educating Through Zoom. You can also find a helpful collection of training videos here from CSULB.

These are various things you can do with zoom to promote student engagement and have a range of activities beyond lecturing. All the videos linked below are closed captioned.

1. Use Breakout Rooms. This allows the class to be divided into small groups for activities or discussion. See a how-to video here.

As noted by students:

  "Breakout sessions in Zoom was an effective tool to keep students engaged. It made participation easier because one did not feel that their voice would be overshadowed by another, also, it allowed students to virtually meet other students."

   "I think breakout rooms were incredibly useful in smaller group discussions and it encouraged students to participate more. In a large group, it can be difficult to participate because you don't want to cut anyone off and you have to unmute yourself, and I'm afraid this can be discouraging sometimes. The breakout rooms definitely address these challenges!"

2. Use polling. This is a short activity that allows the instructor to pose a question to the class (for example, to check understanding, pose a problem to be solved, or solicit feedback). See a how-to video here.

3. Use the whiteboard. The teacher can use the whiteboard to write down ideas or to summarize discussion points; students can do this as well (for example, to summarize their small group discussion to the larger class). Here are a few helpful videos: Advanced Zoom- How Screen share works when teaching online and this one about tutoring with the whiteboard (which can also be applied to classes).

According to one student:

  "I  really liked that group/class discussion points were typed out on the shared screen for copying."

4. Share files, videos, or other materials from your computer. Zoom has a nice tutorial here.

5. Use the non-verbal feedback feature. These are icons students can use to indicate yes or no, raise hand, need a break, among others. Instructions can be found here.


Here are some videos that illustrate various ideas for engaging students in zoom: 

1. Zoom-Make the lessons more student-centered-Practical Ideas. This video illustrates the use of padlet, which is free until 7/31/20, and Google forms, which is free.

2. Harvard has an In-depth Guide: using Zoom to teach online class sessions, including suggestions for engaging students.