Instructor Tips for better facilitation of online class meetings

Before the meeting

Make sure your students know that class will be held virtually. Contact students by email, Canvas announcments, and through the Canvas inbox. Give them at least 24 hour notice, and message more than once using multiple methods (email, Canvas Announcements, Canvas Inbox) to maximize your message

Communicate technology needs. Students need to be connected to the internet with a DSL or better connection. Student should have a webcam and microphone available to them to help reduce extra noise and audio feedback.

During the meeting

Record your sessions. Zoom lets instructors record meetings. Doing so will allow students who were unable to attend the live session to catch up on the material covered that day in class.

Consider having students mute their microphones. Having participants mute their microphones when not in use can help reduce background noise and interference.

Consider using chat as a way for students to ask questions. This can create a type of "back channel" that can allow participants to ask questions without interrupting the speaker. As a speaker you can address the questions when you have time.

After the meeting

Share the meeting recording in your course. This will allow students that couldn't attend to view the meeting.

Send an Announcement reminding students to review the recorded meeting.

Require a reflection/summary. Require all students (or just students that couldn't attend) to submit a reflection or summary of the synchronous meeting. This will help prevent students from skipping the synchronous meetings.

Illustration of Canvas menu steps for enabling Zoom in a course

Setting up Zoom in your course

Zoom is available for course use within Canvas at UWSP, but needs to be enabled in each course in which you want to use it.

To enable Zoom in your course, (1) access the course settings from the menu to the left (2). Access the "Navigation" tab (3). Find Zoom in the bottom area. (4) Drag it from the bottom area to the top (or click on the three vertical dots and choose enable) then click "Save" at the bottom of the screen. Click "Home" to return to the course home - you should see Zoom on the menu.

Canvas Guides - How do I manage Course Navigation links?

Getting Started in Zoom

Zoom support provides a page full of document and video links that will help you get off the ground in Zoom. This is available here: http://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/categories/200101697

Creating a Class Meeting and Recommended Settings

Access the Zoom link in your course Navigation. Select the "Schedule a New Meeting" button at the top right of the screen

Recurring meeting - the recurring meeting checkbox will allow you to schedule multiple meetings at the same time. Use this to set up all of your class sessions at once.

Video Host, Participant - These control the default state of the camera when they join the meeting. Its a good idea to leave these set to off to allow your participants time to ready themselves before sharing thier video.

Meeting Options -

"Enable join before host" should be selected. This will allow your students into the room before you.
"Mute participants upon entry" should be selected. This will require your students to turn on their mics themselves. This promotes a more orderly environment, and ensures that students don't accidentally say something on mic that they don't want the class to hear.
"Use Personal Meeting ID" should be unselected. This will create a seperate meeting room that will run independently of your personal room.
"Enable waiting room" should be left off for whole class meetings. The waiting room will require you to let students into the room as they join. Enable waiting room is useful for Office Hours sessions or one-on-one meetings.
"Record the meeting automatically" should be left off.
"Alternative hosts" allows you to set another user or multiple users, to be the lead in a meeting if you are unable to attend.

Recording Meetings

It is a good idea to record class sessions. Doing so allows students who were unable to attend class because of illness or other reasons to easily catch up on the content that they missed.

YouTube Video - Recording a Zoom meeting

Breakout rooms

Breakout Rooms allow you to split a large class into smaller working groups in the same way you would in a face-to-face class session. Instructors can move from one breakout room to another and recall everyone back to the main room when needed.

Zoom Support page - Getting started with Breakout Rooms

Zoom Support

Zoom provided these resources to customers in response to possible extended need to offer classes online:

"Zoom is doing everything we can to provide resources and support to equip our Education customers to leverage Zoom in a virtual learning environment. We have created the following documents to assist with this transition, as needed:

Also, organizations such as Outschool, a marketplace for live online classes, have made available Free Remote Teacher Training Webinars showing how to adapt teaching practices and curriculum to a live video chat classroom. These webinars are led by Outschool’s experienced teachers who have transitioned from in-person to online teaching. Educators can sign up and find available times/dates here."

Zoom is the primary contact for support of the Zoom platform. Their help page is located at https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us (Links to an external site.).

You can reach Zoom support by submitting a ticket at this address: https://zoom.us/zendesk/sso?return_to=https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/requests/new (Links to an external site.)

or by phone at: +1.888.799.9666 ext 2

You may also contact the UWSP Service Desk for help with Zoom by phone at 715-346-HELP.