By: Dr. Diliana Peregrina-Kretz
By now we are all probably connecting with students via one video-conferencing platform or another (Zoom, anyone?). For me, the pivot from in-person classes and office hours to “Zooming” with students altered the learning environment in more ways than one. In this post, I share how I invited students to be ‘seen’ or unseen in synchronous class gatherings, mixed up the media to increase engagement, and flexed deadlines in recognition of students’ realities.
First, I have three barky dogs and one needy cat who are constantly jostling for my attention, and they get especially rambunctious when they hear disembodied voices coming from my computer. The cacophony of my mini-zoo at home generally led to me using the opening minutes of meetings to acknowledge and introduce Lola, Diego, and Maggie (my dogs)–and occasionally Fitzgerald (my cat)–to students. After the quick introduction, and with the animals losing interest or settling into a nap, I was able to begin. As class started I let students know that it is perfectly okay if there were distractions/responsibilities to which they needed to attend during class and I hoped the (somewhat unintended) example I set eased some of the worry and anxiety that they may have had about online learning. I knew that many of my students had children/siblings under their care and I wanted them to conformable if they stepped away for a few minutes or if their little one joined us for class. Letting students know that you too might have to step away or turn your camera off for a few minutes can normalize the challenges we are all facing while working/teaching on-line.
Likewise, although I share how using our computer cameras during meetings can help facilitate conversations, I completely understood that turning on the camera and inviting classmates and me into their personal space may not be the preference, or even a possibility, for some students. There are so many reason why students can choose to have their camera off (e.g., sharing a work space with several people, having inadequate internet bandwidth, using a telephone to call-in instead of a computer, privacy reasons) and we need be understanding and supportive about what students choose. After all, students attending colleges and universities with in-person teaching did not sign up to be online learners and we need to be flexible about the choices they make to interact with us on-line.
The second challenge I faced when moving towards synchronous video conferencing was a dip in student engagement. When meeting in-person, time in class was collaborative and interactive. Although I made efforts to adjust assignments and projects to meet the new digital interface as best as I could, student engagement during class just didn’t share the same level of excitement that sprung up when meeting in person. Some students were at first flustered by the new and unfamiliar meeting platform, while others were still adjusting to the sometimes awkwardness of meeting virtually. And for some students, stress connected to the pandemic and despair tied to heightened attention around racial inequality made it a challenge to be present and engaged. Since March, I have adopted a few things that have increased student participation:
- I began using polls on Zoom as a means to elicit and share students’ perspectives.
- I placed students in breakout rooms for smaller discussions and interactions—What I love about the breakout rooms on Zoom is that it allows me to “float” around in and out of rooms and listen to the discussion students are having and provide timely feedback if there are questions. One thing I noticed was that breakout rooms often gave students space to have informal conversations and connect with one another as they might during a regular in-person class.
- I also made use of Zoom’s “white board” for Mind Mapping, drawing ideas, even expressing feelings. Having this tool to begin or expand a conversation was a powerful tool – it allowed students to freely and creatively connect with one another. Below, I share a screenshot of a white board activity I did with my undergraduate students during the spring semester.
- I encouraged students to use the chat function to type comments, questions, and encouragement to one another when doing presentations—I really like this function as well as many students who are not willing to chime in during the discussion have an opportunity to participate.
- To pace class (one which met once a week for 3 hours, and the other bi-weekly for 6 hours) I incorporated other web-based applications to deliver content within Zoom (e.g., You Tube, Google Docs., Panapto). Incorporating other applications to my online class allowed me to break-up content into more digestible segments and make class more visually interesting.
The third challenge, or rather, change I needed to make when moving the course online was to be flexible on project deadlines. I know, I know – deadlines are important. I know how pressed faculty are for time and how crucial it is to keep students on track to make sure they are building on their learning in the course. However, more than ever, students need us to have flexibility (as much as we are able to give) on timelines and deadlines. I asked students to reach out to me if there were any issues with completing assignments so that we could work out a revised timeframe. I also decided that I was not going to penalize students for late work. At the end, I had to give those who were a bit behind a final deadline that would allow me sufficient time to grade work and submit grades. But students did not take advantage of the flexibility I gave them with assignments, and all students submitted everything by the final deadline I gave them. Was it more work for me? Yes, but I was okay with this. Extending deadlines is not ideal and may not be the best strategy all the time, but for me, in that moment in time, it was the right one to help students cope with all of the changes happening around them.
I get to take a little break from teaching this fall, but I will be back in the classroom in the spring. There is no word yet if by then we will continue to deliver content online or if we will be able to return to the classroom and embrace the presence of each other in person. In either case, striving to make the learning environment (whatever it may be) student-centered is something I will be better equipped to do.
Dr. Diliana Peregrina-Kretz is the Director of TRiO Educational Talent Search at College of the Desert and an Adjunct Faculty member in the Department of Educational Leadership at California State University, Long Beach.
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