Number 1 Tip: you must think first about your students’ experience, not your performance.

Ask a colleague to let you join one of their classes. Experience being a Collaborate student for a minimum of 30 minutes. Pay attention to both audio and visual elements; were you engaged? Record what worked and did not work for you. Then, flip roles and sit beside the instructor for a minimum of 30 minutes to see how they manage the class from the other side.

Skim the Instructor Guides to understand the platform and all the tools and possibilities. Then read carefully the guides for the tools you plan to use. Print them out and have them handy during class, just in case.

If you have been teaching via VTC, Teams, or Zoom, you will find many more tools available to you in these online tools. You can create breakout groups of equal size and random membership, you can instantly poll, you can share applications, conduct quizzes, and more. Get creative and reconceive how to cover class material.

Get mentally prepared to be both instructor and producer of the event. The portion of your attention span that is spent reading body language in a face-to-face class is replaced by managing the session.

Watch the evening news, paying attention to the changes to visual images. Imagine what it would be like if they told an entire story with nothing on the screen but a bulleted PowerPoint list. Think about how your class can be more like the news and less like boring government online training.

Have all the files and applications you anticipate you will refer to open. Don’t waste time hunting for them during the session.

Set up the session so that students can log in 30 minutes prior to class start time. This gives you time to deal with any technical issues. It gives the students a forum for discussion (especially helpful if there are group assignments in your class or another class). Be one of the first to log in, and post your visual aids immediately. I put an agenda slide up there so when students arrive, they see the plan for the session instead of a blank screen. You can then “leave the room” and do other things until class time, or you could hold “office hours.” Remember to hit the Record button.

Turn it on to create a human-to-human interaction. You might use the camera as a cue, telling your students that when your camera is off, they should be listening and absorbing new content and when your camera is on, it is time to have a dialogue. Require them to use their cameras so you can read body language.

I often start each class with 5 minutes of free form discussion on current events or “what crossed my desk this week” so long as they are related to class concepts. I occasionally play an appropriate song in the few minutes right before class begins (e.g., Christmas carols in December, or “Tuesday Afternoon” for a Tuesday class.)

Every so often ask the question: how are you doing? Too fast? Too slow? Any questions? Can you hear me OK?

Ask for a thumbs-up reaction for a yes, or a raised hand for a question or problem.

Make good use of the multiple simultaneous communication streams. While I may be having the primary conversation with the class, collectively or with an individual student, I encourage students to use the chat feature to ask for clarification. More often than not, a classmate will address the matter, and I will not have to. Sometimes students will elaborate on the topic with sidebar conversations. Monitor those and correct errors, but don’t discourage them. I will even pause the lesson to scroll back and see what students have been saying – reading aloud – to signal that I am paying attention.

Sure, some students may be answering emails or looking at Facebook during class, but they do that in residence, too. Use the same techniques you would use in residence: cold call them, or engage students in class-time activities (e.g., application sharing, problem sets, small group work)

A great tool for small group work. Before you send students off to their groups, give the ground rules (how much time do you have, choose a briefer for your group, etc.). You also need to visit every group – this is not time for you to take a break, drop by, listen for a while, ask for a summary, steer as necessary, move to the next group.

This is a great tool for formative assessment. I start most classes with Review/Preview multiple choice questions: 3-5 questions on last week’s material and 2-3 questions from the reading for today’s material. You could also incorporate polls into the middle of the session.

– I tend to take slightly longer breaks with DL students (15 minutes) so I have time to review the chat for anything I missed and to prep for the next hour. It gives them ample time to use the restroom, eat, or get coffee. If software has a timer, use it so everyone knows when you will resume; if it doesn’t there are free ones you can download. Don’t forget to mute if you plan to use the phone or talk to yourself.

Find a quiet place, put a Do Not Disturb sign on your door, turn off your phones, and turn off your email. The students don’t need to hear the rings and dings. Similarly, mute any student who is making unproductive noise.

Keep the whiteboard interesting. If you are working through a bulleted list on a PowerPoint slide, use a pointing finger or blinking light or use the pen to check things off as you go. Mark up the screen with the pen. Use animation features embedded in presentation software.

You need to lay out your materials for your students in a very methodical, organized fashion so that they know exactly what to do, when. I organize my course into five 2-week modules with 5 elements each, the same five every module: introductory video, learning objectives, readings & substantive videos, discussions, and writing assignment.

This is where my students “come to class.” I start each module with five challenging and open-ended questions. The conversations will branch off from there. Discussions are a significant portion of the students’ grade (25%). I give them a rubric (appended to the end of this document) of what is expected in the discussion boards that includes both quantitative and qualitative elements.

This app is new to me, but I can see a lot of potential, particularly for group assignments.

• You should be a guide in the discussion boards – ask more questions than give answers – let the other students answer. Steer the conversation toward learning objectives if it goes astray. Encourage participation and use students’ names in your comments. Model high quality postings.
• You need to keep the drumbeat of the course so students do not fall behind. My writing assignments are always due on the first Monday of the subsequent module, for example. My discussion boards stay open for only 3 weeks, then close to force the students to move along. I send weekly emails to everyone.
• Hold office hours synchronously. Use Zoom or MS Teams for this.

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

– Maya Angelou