Module 9

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Module 9: Host Engaging Synchronous Sessions

Many instructors opt to hold synchronous sessions via Zoom during their regularly scheduled course time for any number of reasons during a semester. Zoom is particularly useful to keep class running in the case of short-term disruptions, so it's important to know how to create your Zoom room, share it with students, and adapt your lecture and activities to the new format. Furthermore, there are additional considerations to ensure all students can equally participate in the class. 

In this module, we’ll take a closer look at how to effectively plan, organize, and host engaging synchronous sessions.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this module, you'll be able to:

  1. Schedule synchronous classes and office hours using bCourses' Zoom integration
  2. Record and share your synchronous lectures using Kaltura's Zoom integration
  3. Create an inclusive space for all students to engage during synchronous sessions
  4. Plan structured activities for breakout rooms
  5. Use student response systems to engage students during synchronous sessions
  6. Apply best practices in hosting engaging synchronous sessions

All of these learning objectives will help you to achieve the overall course objective: Develop engaging instructional materials and Provide opportunities for active student-to-student interaction.

How To Do It

Schedule synchronous classes and office hours using bCourses' Zoom integration

When scheduling synchronous sessions that all students are invited to join, such as your regular class meeting time or remote office hours, it is effective to create the Zoom meetings via bCourses' Zoom integration. This will allow all students in the course to access the meeting from the bCourses site and they will also see it on their bCourses calendar. 

The following instructions developed by DLS explain how to enable bCourses Zoom integration and schedule a meeting.

Record and share your synchronous lectures using Kaltura's Zoom integration

In order to ensure equal access to your course content, be sure to record live Zoom sessions and make the recordings available to all students in the course. You can easily share your Zoom recordings in bCourses with the Kaltura integration.  

The following articles from RTL and bIT explain how to ensure your Zoom recordings are automatically saved in your My Media folder, a private Kaltura folder only accessible to you, and how to then save and share those recordings with students in bCourses.

Create an inclusive space for all students to engage during synchronous sessions

When you create your virtual meeting, you will want to use the appropriate settings to ensure it remains secure. The following article from the UC Berkeley Information Security Office provides information on the appropriate settings to prevent secure your Zoom meeting.

When running a live session, it's important to remember that you need to create a virtual space that is welcoming to all students, the same way you would for an in-person class. The Division of Equity and Inclusion has created a toolkit for creating healthy virtual environments that provides helpful information about how to establish norms and guidance for recognizing and responding to harmful behavior.

Part of making an inclusive space includes having a remote attendance policy that accounts for the challenges students may face when joining a class via Zoom.

The following article from CTL provides recommendations for how to develop a remote attendance policy.

Plan structured activities for breakout rooms

Breakout rooms are a useful way to run discussions on Zoom because they allow for small group interaction. If you haven’t used breakout rooms before, you can learn more about how to enable and manage breakout rooms in the following articles from Zoom.

When using breakout rooms during your live class time, it’s important to give students structure for what to complete in the breakout rooms. This can include giving clear instructions for deciding who will take on different roles in the group (e.g., the person whose birthday is next will share first, the person who grew up the furthest from Berkeley will take notes, etc.). It also means providing a clear activity and goal for what students should accomplish by the end.

CTL has a robust Active Learning guide that provides a list of activities and how to implement them in a remote learning environment.

Use student response systems to engage students during synchronous sessions

A great way to engage students in your synchronous sessions is by using one of the Student Response Systems (also known as "Clickers"), just as you would in the in-person classroom, to pose questions and get immediate feedback on the student learning process. Students participate remotely via their personal devices (laptop, tablet, or cell phone). Refer to the following RTL page for more information about using Student Response Systems.

Zoom also has built-in polling features that can be implemented to enhance student engagement and active learning. See below for Zoom's article on polling, as well as RTL's Zoom for Instruction page for updates, resources, and FAQ.

Best Practices

Now that you know how to complete the activities covered in this module, read more about how best to use them in you course.