Over the last year of teaching during the global pandemic, faculty have been asked to move from a face-to-face classroom to a virtual online classroom teaching synchronously or asynchronously. According to Collegis Education News, faculty are getting stressed out over the mental and physical exhaustion of teaching on Zoom this last year.
Do you need to overcome the lack of face-to-face interaction with students?
Do you need your classes to be more interactive?
4 Tips to Help with Technology in Classes
1) Change your mindset to become a Television anchor.
When teaching synchronous lessons, pretend to be your favorite television news personality. TV personalities have millions of loyal followers with whom they connect every day. Your students are your TV audience. The students are loyal followers who tune in to your show every time it airs to hear your take on a topic. Talk to the camera and reach through it to connect with your students on a personal basis. Students are listening even when you think they’re not.
2) Record your lecture ahead of time for asynchronous content.
There are features in Zoom where you can record your lecture and share the pre-recorded lecture with students via a link. Plus you can utilize the tools embedded into Canvas to create your own prerecorded lecture. Canvas Studio and Panopto video recording are great ways to create asynchronous lecture content for students to view outside of the synchronous meeting. This will free up time during the fully online synchronous meetings to foster more engagement with students. Visit the How do I add media to a collection in Canvas Studio page or the How to Access Panopto in a Canvas Course page to learn more.
Inside both Canvas Studio and Panopto video you can create quizzes for students to take while viewing the video content.
3) 3rd Party Engagement Tools
These engagement tools can be used live during class time to facilitate discussion.
- Create a Zoom Poll. Zoom has a built-in polling feature where you can ask multiple choice or yes and no questions. The poll displays inside your Zoom meeting, and you can share poll results immediately.
- Create a poll using PollEverywhere. PollEverwhere allows for polls to be displayed in several different ways in a text wall, word cloud, a cluster or spotlight. The free version will allow for up to 40 students to participate.
- Create a Padlet where students can respond to prompts in a series of columns. Once the students have answered the prompt, ask students to share what they wrote (think/share). The free version allows for three padlets to be made per email address.
- Create a Kahoot game. You can create an interactive quiz, introduce topics or embed your slide presentation inside Kahoot.
4) Stay updated with new features
As faculty, you are the content creator of your course. Companies like Zoom and Instructure (Canvas) are constantly updating features, and changes to the platforms appear with little notice or training. Check-in with the Faculty Technology Center to get the latest updates for CSUN-supported applications.
In fall 2021, it will be important to continue to be flexible, and remember that the Faculty Technology Center is here to support you. Be sure to check back with the FTC Workshop Calendar soon for our summer programming schedule.
Resources
For more resources, take a look at these articles:
- Collegis Education News - Why Faculty Burnout Is an Issue (and How Your School Can Avoid It)
- CSUN Sundial - Cut the Cameras: Students Opt to Shut Off Camera During Zoom Classes
- Inside Higher Ed - Burning Out
