Teaching in Collaborate / Engagement

Anyone?… anyone?

I started to teach online through Blackboard Collaborate a few years ago and it was… interesting. I think what it exposed for me was how much I rely on visual cues to check engagement and understanding in a teaching setting. As these don’t really exist online you have to find workarounds. I would say this is one of the more challenging aspects of moving to an online format. So, in case it’s useful, here’s some suggestions based on the lesson I learned in my long (and fairly bumpy) induction…

Lecture? Or other?

When I first started I ran all sessions like a lecture. It was a good comfort blanket while i figured out the possibilities of the platform but I wouldn’t plan to run all sessions this way. While you certainly can ‘just lecture’ in Collaborate, it gets boring very quickly (for you and the students).

If it is a lecture, it’s worth condsidering whether the students actually need to be there online in real time. If not, you can just record the lecture and make it available on Moodle (Collaborate will do this automatically with recorded sessions).

In non-lecture sessions, presentations are really useful to introduce the session and to structure activities. However, you shouldn’t rely on them too heavily. It’s better to think creatively about the session design and plan different ways for students to engage. Ideally, it is the students who will do most of the work in online formats.

Ground rules

You will probably find, initially at least, students will be even less likely to verbally contribute in an online class as they are in IRL. With no social cues, it can be weird. So before you start, it’s good to set up some rules and make them clear.

I usually have an intro slide in the classroom for 15 minutes before the session starts. It outlines some basic etiquette. Different sessions require different things but generally it includes things like:

• Arrive early and check your video and audio before the session
• Keep your mic on mute unless you’re speaking (you can mute people as a moderator but it gets time consuming)
• If someone is speaking, use the Raise Hand function to ask a question, then wait to be invited to speak.

I put the icons that correspond to each of these on the slide to help the students find them in the interface. I design my own but UAL have a ready-to-go one available.

Discussions

It’s advisable not to be too vague or open ended if you want good quality discussions. Ask direct questions that students can respond to rather than asking them something general like ‘what they think.’

That said, if you want to do a temperature check and see how everyone feels about something, or whether they understand, there is a useful tool for this. Students can change their profile picture to an emoji momentarily. This gives a quick response, visible to everyone without anyone needing to speak. It’s great to use these as check ins, especially after you’ve introduced a concept or an idea that might raise questions.

Polls

Another useful way to start a discussion is with a quick poll. This gives some stats on what people think about a given topic. You can then invite people to share on specifics either verbally or via chat.

Breakout groups

For smaller group discussions you could use the breakout rooms feature.

You can give students a question, an activity or a series of discussion points on the screen (as a slide) with a timeframe to discuss them in groups. You can then set Collaborate to randomly assign groups with one click. This sends people in a virtual breakout room. When the time is up, you can pull everyone back into the main room to feedback.

If you are going to ask students to feedback to the larger group, it’s good to ask them to decide who will do this in advance while in their groups.

If all else fails… emoji

There are some features that can be useful for shyer or less confident students. For example, students don’t need to say anything but they can show appreciation for things that are being said with emojis.

Be specific

With all of this it’s important that you, as the facilitator, communicate the specific expectations of each task to the students. You have to be clear in what you’re asking them to do and why. Activities, even discussions, need to be quite structured to be successful online.

It’s weird…

If it all sounds a bit weird and artificial, that’s because it is. It’s actually worth taking time to all acknowledge this (and laugh about it) when you’re interacting with students online. Things will go wrong and you won’t always feel totally in control of every single moment.

Like the name suggests, this is a collaboration between you and your students. It will generally be as good as the levels of planning, good will and engagement that all participants bring to it. Once you’ve gotten used to the platform, see if you have the headspace for some experimentation with the different features mentioned above. I have found that using some of these, it is possible to create learning environments where the students are active participants in the process.

Useful links:

Pelz, B. (2010). (My) Three Principles of Effective Online Pedagogy. Journal of Asynchronous Learning Networks, 14(1), 103–116.

Ruarte, Daniel. (2019). Effective Pedagogies for Online Teaching and Learning