Stearns Center for Teaching and Learning

Synchronous Web-Conference Teaching Resources

The resources on this page are designed to help you make some initial decisions about your synchronous web-conferencing teaching — whether you are using that as your primary teaching modality or as a supplement to your face-to-face or online asynchronous teaching.  Stearns Center also offers ongoing webinars, workshops, and consultations to support your course development in this modality.

  • Build in the LMS: Stearns Center recommends that all synchronous courses have at least a basic “home base” built in Canvas at the start of the semester, and that you familiarize students with its key elements, as preparation in case we need to shift to remote learning.
  • For information and resources about adopting Canvas as your LMS, please see https://lms.gmu.edu

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  • The team at Stearns Center is available to help you with questions about the design and implementation of your course, with advice about strategies, choices, policies, and interactions that improve your students’ learning and your own efficiency and satisfaction — whether you’re teaching in a classroom, via synchronous web-conferencing, in the field, or asynchronously via Canvas.
  • The team at Instructional Technology Services is available to help you with questions about how to use Canvas and related tools to support all of your courses.
Ask the Stearns Center TeamAsk the ITS Team
How can I best organize my course week to week and day to day?How can I receive and locate a Canvas “sandbox” course to practice in?
How much work should I assign, in what patterns and modes?How do I adjust the settings for tools like Canvas Discussions or Tests?
How can I best blend asynchronous, synchronous web-conferencing, and in-person learning?How can I adjust the formatting or layout of my Canvas content?
How can I revise this assignment or activity to fit a new modality, level, or course?How can I set up, record with, edit, or embed Kaltura videos?
How can I improve my assignment design or my grading rubric?How do I set up, use, record, and/or share Canvas Collaborate or Zoom synchronous video sessions?
How can I engage and motivate all my students?How can my students access specific Canvas resources?
How can I provide feedback to students to help them improve?How do I adjust the settings of Canvas rubrics or Gradebook?
How can I create effective assessments and exams that support academic integrity?How do I set up Respondus Lockdown Browser for my students’ exams?

Course Design & Organization Basics

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Adapt your course to new opportunities and constraints

  • Consider elements of basic course redesign:
    1. Successful redesigners are able to prioritize goals within course learning, since they may face time and resource limits
    2. Successful redesigners are able to identify basic preparational knowledge that students can learn without much intervention or interaction
    3. Successful redesigners are able to identify more complex or difficult knowledge that will benefit from interaction, stepwise learning, collaboration, and/or their instructional encouragement and feedback
  • Build inflexibility: This is especially important for learning during a time of interruption and fast-changing environments.
    1. Allow some leeway without penalty: During an unsettled time, many situations can cause delays even for dedicated and responsible students. Technology glitches, wifi access, family needs or emergencies, or issues of their own health or safety can complicate their work as students. For instance, rather than monitor a plethora of explanations and excuses, consider offering all students one or two “Life Happens” passes as you get started: Students can be up to 24 or 48 hours late without penalty or long explanation needed as long as they contact you to request the extension.
    2. Be flexible about video: Unless students need to be on video screen to demonstrate their learning (as in a dance class or an art class), be as flexible as possible in your requirements that students participate visually. Students with their cameras turned off (perhaps due to bandwidth, to unreliable home conditions, to anxiety) can demonstrate that they are paying attention through chat posts, poll answers, or work in shared documents.
    3. See our advice sheet about designing flexible policies for more ideas about teaching flexibly during a pandemic.

Design Course Content

Engaging Students / Implementing Active Learning

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When we teach synchronously with web conferencing, all students attend all of the class meeting every week through streaming web conference. The benefit of this mode of teaching is that students can access web conferencing via the Internet without having to come to campus for a class. You can use the affordances of web conferencing to facilitate active learning, including using the chat-box feature as a backchannel to elicit student participation and using breakout rooms to facilitate small-group discussion.

The “Planning Effective Synchronous Sessions” handout provides ideas on how to plan to use web conferencing tools to build a sense of community and have an effective live class. The “Synchronous Online Zoom Class: Uses and Approaches” webpage provides tips on engaging students during the synchronous online class. For some advice about strategies to make a Zoom (or Collaborate) session more engaging, see this short Faculty Focus article.

To help you plan your synchronous activity, take a look at this Synchronous Activity Planning document. To plan an interactive lecture, consider the Interactive Planning worksheet.

Still looking for more resources? Consider taking a look at…