Teaching Virtually: A Student’s POV
Three things a virtual environment should offer students to facilitate their learning:
I. Interactivity. Students should be able to interact with each other and the professor during lectures. Encouraging interaction among students can promote active learning and improve social cohesion.
- Best Formats: Zoom and Microsoft Teams are great choices, as both offer a chat feature and allow for professors to give lectures live, so students can all be online at the same time to interact with one another. If students are assigned group project, then students should be encouraged to use Microsoft Teams to collaborate on the project.
II. Asynchronous and Synchronous options. I personally prefer synchronous option, since it incentivizes me to create a daily routine and makes logging on for a lecture a habit (like brushing one’s teeth). However, I know students with different learning styles and work hours who prefer the asynchronous option. As a result, I think both options should be available to accomodate more students.
- Best Formats: Zoom and Microsoft Teams both allow for PowerPoint lectures to be given live and recorded, thus giving students the autonomy to choose the option (Asynchronous or Synchronous) that best suit their needs.
III. Structured Discussions. Creating an online discussion board for students to ask questions and answer eachother’s questions is integral to building a sense of community among students. Unfortunately, creating a discussion board is often futile unless you also post discussion questions there and require students to answer them.
In the beginning of the semester, requiring students answer discussion questions will help set expectations for the class. Then, as the semester progresses students may be more likely to take the intiative and ask questions of their own.
Most importantly, having an active discussion board for a class is key to creating an equal opportunity online learning environment. This is because for most classes, students will create a group chat via GroupMe or Discord, and discuss topics outside of class. However, these group chats often only include a portion of the whole class, so students not included in the conversation are likely to miss out on discussions that could help answer questions they may have regarding the course material.
- Best Format: The discussion board Teams offers is a great choice.
All things considered, I believe Zoom is the best format for online lectures, and Micrsoft Teams is the best format for office hours or group project work.