Tips for Synchronous Teaching
Up until a few years ago, bandwidth concerns limited the use of synchronous conversation in online courses. Today, we're seeing an explosion of experimentation with this format. Synchronous classes are generally great for:
- Making personal connections between the students and student to teacher
- Increasing motivation for work
- More connection to the course (less transactional distance)
- Increasing engagement in the material
- Holding less complex discussion
- Instant feedback (verbal and non-verbal)
- Understanding both content and logistics
- Sessions that involve planning (e.g., organizing a project)
- Showing demonstrations
- Taking polls
- Holding virtual office hours
Since sessions themselves move quickly, they are often not as good for:
- Deep critical thinking, though recording sessions helps with this because students can replay the content
- Flexibility/accessibility (everyone has to show up at the same time)
- Final exam mastery
- Group work (note: managing synchronous group work can be effective, but is an advanced skill for most instructors)
Teaching Strategies:
One advantage regarding synchronous classes is that the teacher’s skillfulness in leading discussions in the face to face classroom (critical inquiry, co-operative debate, Socratic learning, immediate feedback, humor, etc.) can be used naturally in the virtual classroom. It is more difficult to build these components into asynchronous learning.
- Maintain a lively pace
- Visualize the content (can you add any pictures/slides to help direct conversation?)
- Incorporate frequent participant responses (polls, hand raises, everyone saying something)
- Use small group breakout rooms (not necessary for an already small class)
- Maintain a shorter class time. Students feel more positive about the interactions and are more engaged if classes are 60-90 minutes at most
- Light-load co-operation (especially in smaller groups)
- When students work in virtual teams, have them develop a team contract that details expectations for group process and responsibilities before work begins.
More Tips:
- Tips for engaging students in synchronous discussion from Inside Higher Ed.
- More tips from Higher E-Learning.
- Teaching Online: Synchronous Classes from Lynda.com (login with your GW login by entering gwu.edu as the organization)
- How to Use Videoconferencing for Effective Teaching from TeachOnline.ca
