Class meetings online

Holding class meetings live with Zoom best approximates a classroom setting, since students can ask questions and engage in discussion and group work. During a crisis when students aren’t coming to campus, a live class meeting in Zoom may be a good way to provide some sense of normalcy and regular schedule.

Suggested best practices

  • Be aware that during a crisis some students won’t have access to fast internet connections, and others may have their schedules disrupted. So, record any live classroom session, and be flexible about how students can attend and participate.
  • If a crisis is disrupting classes, class meetings should mean more than just providing course content; they also establish a sense of normalcy and a personal connection. Class meetings can be times to make students feel connected and cared about: acknowledgement of current challenges, praise for good work, and reminders about the class being a community. This affective work can help student learning during a difficult time.
  • Require students to use their video cameras unless their internet bandwidth is poor. This strategy is crucial to enhance participation. Give students advance notice of this requirement. Invite them to contact you directly if they have any concerns. Explain to them that they can set a Virtual Background so that they are the only person visible if there are other people in the background.
  • Make the class sessions as interactive as possible – this may be one of the few hours per week when the students are intellectually engaged with their peers, so make the most of it. Have students discuss the readings, work problems, engage in case studies, role play scenarios, work in break-out groups.
  • Provide clear expectations for how live discussion will go, and what your expectations are. Consider reminding students about your class discussion guidelines (or institute some, if you hadn’t used any before).
  • Share other materials ahead of the live meeting. Move materials you would normally have presented in class lectures, outside of the live meetings where possible. Find pre-existing video modules or other materials that explain concepts, provide or create additional readings, or make short (<10 min) video lectures, demonstrations, or problem-solving sessions.

Tips for using Zoom

Zoom is the recommended tool at DKU for holding live class sessions and online office hours. Some tips:

  • Require students to use their video cameras unless their internet bandwidth is quite poor.
  • When possible ask students to use a headset with built in microphone rather than their laptop’s speakers and microphone. If that is not possible, as students to attend class from a quiet location. Students should mute their microphones when not speaking.
  • Enable auto-record in the cloud (so your class meetings are always recorded and the recordings are saved in the cloud instead of on your hard drive), and turn on the non-verbal feedback options, which allow students to respond with quick signals to your questions (thumbs up/down, yes/no, etc.)
  • Use break-out rooms periodically for moving students into small groups to work on problems or discuss. You can move between the groups as needed, and return groups to the main room to provide summaries or continue discussions. Break-out groups can be created with random assignment of students to groups, or students can be pre-assigned into groups by you before the session starts.
  • Use polls periodically to gather student input, but be aware that you need to set up polls before your session starts.
  • Each Zoom user has her or his own “Personal Meeting Room” in Zoom, which is always available with a permanent URL (which you can configure) and which doesn’t need to be scheduled – you can give others the URL to your Personal Meeting Room and they can join you there at a time convenient to you both. Use this for office hours, meeting with advisees, and meetings with colleagues.
  • Zoom can be enabled in your Sakai site, and we recommend scheduling class meetings from there, so that links to the meetings are located easily by students. Links to recordings will also appear in Sakai if the class meetings are scheduled from there.
  • Zoom Privacy: Security and Privacy in Your Meetings (useful tips to avoid “zoombombing”)

Help and documentation