Pedagogical Recommendations

• If students are sharing their presentations asynchronously:
  • Ask students to record themselves at their screen, using a web camera, the built-in microphone on their computer, and screen sharing software combined to capture both their faces/persons as well as the slides on the screen.
    • Zoom, and Screencast-o-matic can be used for audio/video recording in this capacity, as can Quicktime (on Mac only).
      • If students want to use presenter notes while recording in Zoom in particular, they can follow the instructions to use two monitors with screen sharing.
    • Voiceover narration in slide deck creation software can also be used via Keynote (Mac), PowerPoint (Mac or PC), or Quicktime (Mac).
    • Students can save their final recording file and upload it to AIMS via Assignments or Forums
      • If students submit the recording via AIMS Assignments, the file will only be visible to the instructor. If students submit the recording via AIMS Discussions, the file will be visible to the full class community.

Student-Facing Language for Students Giving Live Presentations

Your instructor will provide the URL to the Zoom room. Simply click the URL or paste into your browser of choice to open the meeting.

• Audio and Video Setup
  • After launching the Zoom meeting from the meeting URL, you will be prompted to join the room’s audio. Click “join audio by computer.” Zoom allows audio participation through your computer’s internal speakers, a headset, or a phone line.
• Mute Yourself/Stop Webcam
  • To mute, click the microphone icon in the bottom-left corner. To unmute, click the microphone icon again. Follow the same process to turn the webcam on and off.
  • Background noise can be minimized if you mute yourself when you’re listening.

Share Screen

Participants are able to share applications or documents using Share Screen. After selecting “Share Screen”, Zoom will present a list of all active applications and available desktops on your computer. You may also choose to share a whiteboard or iPhone/iPad. When the screen is shared, the bottom navigation menu will move to the top of the screen. To reposition the menu, simply click and drag.

• NOTE: By default, screen share opens in full screen. If you have the participants list and chat windows open (they will display on the right-hand side of the meeting), the windows will be hidden in full screen. Either click “Exit Full Screen” in the upper right corner or re-enable the windows by clicking “Manage Participants” and “Chat”. The annotation toolbar allows participants to draw and make comments on the shared screen. Your instructor may choose to disable this feature. To end the screen share, choose “Stop Share”

Student-Facing Language for Students Pre-Recording Presentations

Uses a web camera, the built-in microphone on the computer, and screen sharing software combined to capture your face (in window) as well as the slides on your screen. Directions

• Open NEOMED Zoom. (you may be prompted to give your NEOMED log in)
• Click Host a Meeting (don’t worry, you don’t need anyone else in the mtg!)
• Be sure to activate audio and video (bottom left corner) When you activate video you will have a video window in the upper corner of your ppt where we can see you presenting the material
• Turn on Screen Sharing (center bottom) and you’ll be prompted to select what you want to share: go to your desktop (and select your ppt) or you may see your ppt as a direct option, if you have the file open.
• Hit record (bottom center screen) and select “send to cloud” (red record light appears at top of screen)
• When you finish your presentation, hit end recording
• Within a few minutes, you’ll receive two links in an email from the Zoom cloud: a shareable link and a second private link where only you can download your video file.

More questions?

Access a guide on recording in zoom.

Want to use presenter notes?

Dual monitor screen sharing with ppt zoom tutorial here.

To remove technical hurdles and to ensure that students are able to engage with peers and each other in a discussion-based class (even without a strong Internet connection), you might choose to move student discussion to an asynchronous format. Create an AIMS Discussion as a forum to facilitate communication, encourage students to interact, ask questions and respond to discussion prompts.

Pedagogical recommendations

• Craft discussion questions to be as clear and as specific as possible so that students can build off of the question for a sustained response.
  • See Stanford Teaching Commons’ “Designing Effective Discussion Questions”
  • See “Conversation Starters: Orchestrating Asynchronous Discussion to Build Academic Community among First-Year Writers” by Dan Seward
• Assign roles to students so that they understand when and how they might respond to you or their peers. For example, students might “role play” as particular kinds of respondents or you might ask them to do particular tasks (e.g. be a summarizer, a respondent, a connector with outside resources).

You may not currently use a chat function in your class, but it can be a useful tool, especially for student office hours or for students who may be more comfortable asking questions via chat compared to by phone or video calls.

In AIMS, there is a Chat tool available that functions as an instant messaging platform. The messages in chat are visible to the full class community and can be read in real time.

Learn more

How do I use chat as an instructor?

Synchronous Tool Recommendation: Zoom. AIMS Zoom Integration, Zoom Cheat Sheet **Note that this is not an option for Winter 2020 classes, but we are keeping it here in case recommendations change in the future.** Some students, due to compromised immune systems, etc., may want to Zoom in. The challenge is to make sure that students joining by Zoom feel like full participants in the class. Zoom participants often struggle with poor sound quality and a sense of disconnection.

• Position your computer so that students can see and hear as well as possible. If necessary, repeat student points for the Zoom crowd, if only you are close enough to be heard. You might consider bringing or borrowing a microphone to make it easier for students to hear.
• Solicit input from Zoom participants, as Zoom students may have a harder time breaking into the conversation.
• Assign a student to moderate the Zoom chat and to speak up for a Zoom participant with a question or a raised hand.
• Share handouts and slides in advance to make sure Zoom participants can look at them. These handouts and slides could be shared via links in the Zoom chat room or by directing the student(s) to the appropriate place in AIMS where the materials may be available.
• Rethink your classroom activities to make the class more interactive even if Zoom students don’t have ideal connections and aren’t able to hear and see everything perfectly.
  • Have students write and comment together on a shared Google Doc.
  • Try using Turning Technologies to collect student responses, and then share results with both in-person and online students.
  • If doing group work, consider an alternative activity for Zoom students. If multiple students are on Zoom, put them in a group together to discuss.

If lectures continue to be held in person, but some students, particularly students with any immunity issues, need other ways to access the lecture material, you have several options. The one that is best for you really depends on the physical space of your class, your comfort with tech, etc.

The main challenge of these situations is usually making sure that the sound quality is good enough for students to hear.

Synchronous

• Use Zoom, as you would in small classes. Mute all participants, and make sure someone is monitoring chat.

Asynchronous

• Record lectures using Screencast-O-Matic

Asynchronous

Recommended Tool: Office 365 Calendar or Calendly If you usually send around a physical sign-in sheet, you might be looking for alternatives that let you schedule appointment slots with students.

You may book and reserve time with students in two different ways:

• Office 365 This is application allows you to schedule time with a student by seeing your availability and then check the students via scheduling assistance. The scheduler will look for common free time between both schedules and make recommendations.
• Calendly. This is not an officially supported NEOMED scheduling tool, but this is a tool option that instructors may want to consider for easily making appointments/meetings in a way that seamlessly syncs up with students’ and instructors’ calendars. Within Calendly, instructors can place their own text into the description and offer students additional context or information about the meeting that they’re scheduling.

Synchronous Recommended Tool: Office 365 & Zoom Asynchronous Recommended Tool: AIMS Assignment Peer Review* or AIMS Forums See also: AIMS Getting Started with Forums* and Best Practices in Forums*

Pedagogical Recommendations

• Write out clear and specific instructions about the expectations for peer review. This means specifying the qualities of writing that students may want to look for in each other’s work. Distributing guiding questions or a worksheet that students can fill out as they review their peer’s work can be a valuable supplement to guide students’ virtual reading.
• If you are introducing peer review synchronously (via Zoom or another teleconferencing platform) and having students work in real time in Office 365, consider:
  • Engaging the students in a chat-based or video-based conversation about their expectations for peer review
  • Have students use the chat box feature to share ideas about what makes for effective peer review
  • Use a polling tool, like Turning Technologies, to collect ideas about students’ impressions of and expectations for peer review
• If you are introducing peer review asynchronously, consider:
  • Opening up a discussion forum with a prompt that invites students to share their past experiences with peer review. What worked? What didn’t? What are their goals this time? Aggregate student responses to create a document that outlines the class expectations and understandings of effective peer review experiences.
  • Ask students to include questions for their peer reviewers at the top of their document so that their reviewers can have a sense of what the author would like them to focus on.
• Include links to technical documentation and support so that students can troubleshoot if they are not able to access peers’ documents.