Encouraging Plenty of Participation
Central to a strong classroom community is ensuring that the student voice is put center stage. The IPP situates participation in experience and asks us to consider "How do you inspire your students to fully experience course concepts, to internalize the material so learning goes beyond an intellectual exercise?" Below you will find key strategies for ensuring students actively engage withyou, each other and course content.
Flip Your Lessons
The number one way to increase participation in your course is to flip some of your content to free up live class time. Put your content presentations like narrated PowerPoints on Canvas for students to watch asynchronously. This will free up live class time for student-centered engagement and interactions. The more time students are able to spend talking and sharing, the better.
How: Check out Best Practices for Voiceover Slides and be sure to browse the CDLI Learning Activities Gallery.
Diversify Ways to Participate
Some students do well articulating their thoughts through writing, while others do better through creating visuals or talking through their ideas in small groups. To increase student participation, it’s useful to offer different ways ways for students to participate in your course. Mixing big group conversations with smaller breakout rooms will serve a wider variety of your students. Keeping chat open for students who prefer to type instead of speak is a great strategy too.
How: Look over your course activities to make sure you offer diverse ways for students to share their voice.
Manage the Big Group Participation
Zoom has a lot of features that help students participate in your course. Breakout rooms are a great way to put students into small groups who may not be comfortable speaking with the larger group. Nonverbal feedback like thumbs up or thumbs down in Zoom are a great way to quickly see if students are understanding or not understanding a topic. You can also use Polling, whiteboard, and give students the ability to share their own screens to present. Be sure to sign up for a Zoom workshop Links to an external site. to cover these features in depth.
How: Check out the Zoom guides for nonverbal feedback Links to an external site., polling Links to an external site., whiteboards Links to an external site., and breakout rooms Links to an external site..
Organize the Small Groups
Without structure, students have reported a poor experience in small groups and Zoom breakout rooms. Consider adopting roles for each group member so that everyone has clearly defined expectations for participation. Make those roles clear at the start of the quarter and consider rotating group roles so that members don’t get stuck with the same tasks each week.
How: Check out the EduTech Wiki on Student Roles Links to an external site. compiled by faculty over many years for role inspiration.