Creating Positive Classroom Dynamics
Do your virtual students ask fewer questions? Do you wish they would engage more and have more discussions? Class dynamics doesn’t come as easy with everyone sitting on their own, but there are some tricks to make them feel more connected to you and their fellow students.
Here is some advice to make your students keep their attention, engage more and at the end of the day find you a better instructor.
Initiate more dialogue
First: Ask around more, especially early in the course - Not necessarily subject related questions. Ask where they are - Which town, at home or at work etc. Ask what the weather is. After the break, ask what they had - Tea, coffee, something else? Ask what they had for lunch, if they are alone or have colleagues, spouses or children around. If you do this initially, you’ll notice that it won’t be as big a step for them to use their voice for questions or discussions later on. And, ask more course related questions too. How did the lab go, how do you handle this or that today at your workplace, etc etc.
Use the student names
Try to use their names when addressing them. Not in every other sentence like those bad telemarketers, but every time you start a new dialogue with a specific student, even if it might seem obvious who you’re speaking to.
Add short breaks
Try not to give more than 45 minutes of lecturing at a time, and split your lectures with short 3-minute pauses.
When doing this, point out that this is to help them focus and that it's important for everyone to be back on time. Three minutes will not be enough to smoke a cigarette or make coffee, but rather just rise from ones chair and walk back and forth through the apartment, or refill a glass of water.
In addition to this, always make the usual lunch and coffee breaks.
Explore the Zoom features
Take some time to explore the hand raising, polling and other features the Zoom tool has to give. These are excellent ways to make the students interact more.
Camera - Recommended for the student, mandatory for you
It’s essential for you to encourage your students from start to use their webcams during the class. Live webcams make much better dynamics in the class, and you will notice you get more questions and more discussions if they all have their cameras on.
Don’t be afraid to push the students to use their camera. In the instructions provided to the students, we clearly say that having the camera running makes the job easier for the instructor to “read the room” and do his/her job, and that the class will run better if they are visible for both the instructor and the rest of the class. So, if you make this claim, you are only reminding them of what we have already communicated.
For this to work, you’ll obviously need to have your own camera live throughout the class. Should you have any problems with rigging or purchasing a camera, please contact us to discuss your options.
Stay present, even during labs
In a classroom, you might use parts of the lab time to check your emails, maybe write short replies to one or two, and sometimes even make a short phone call right outside the classroom door. The corresponding way to do this when giving a virtual course is to do it while still visible in the meeting.
You might mute the microphone, but please keep the camera on. Stay visible in the Zoom meeting even during the labs, to ensure the students feel comfortable to raise questions and issues.