ONLINE

TEACHING WITH ZOOM

A GUIDE FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH

VIDEOCONFERENCE PLATFORMS
AARON JOHNSON
Copyright © 2020 by Aaron Johnson

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While the author has used his best efforts in preparing this book and companion website, he makes no
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companion website, and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a
particular purpose. There are no warranties which extend beyond the descriptions contained in this
paragraph. The advice and strategies contained herein may not apply or be suitable for your situation. You
should consult with a professional where appropriate. The accuracy and completeness of the information
provided herein and the opinions stated herein are not guaranteed or warranted to produce any particular
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Trademarks: Zoom is the trademark of Zoom, https://zoom.us
First Paperback Edition July 2020
ISBN 978-0-9897116-3-0 (paperback)
ISBN 978-0-9897116-4-7 (ebook)

https://excellentonlineteaching.com
 To Monte—
You’ve modeled the heart of this book
for your students and colleagues.
 CONTENTS

Introduction

I. The Technical Stuff

1. The Equipment
2. Prepare Your Classroom
3. Testing and Technical Difficulties
4. Sharing
5. Breakout Room Basics
6. Chat
7. Polls
8. Security
II. A Recipe for Success
9. The Student Perspective
10. Classroom Protocols
III. Active Learning with Zoom
11. Key Instructional Practices
12. 30 Active Learning Methods
13. Facilitating Active Learning
Interlude: Adapting
IV. Working with Breakout Groups
14. Establishing Groups
15. Group Etiquette
16. Breakout Sizes and Dynamics
17. Zoom Preps
18. Discussion Guides
19. Facilitating Breakouts
V. Wrapping Up
20. Improving Our Game

Afterword
Notes
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also By The Author
 INTRODUCTION

My grandfather was part of the Greatest Generation, who weathered the Great
Depression and enlisted to fight in World War 2. He once told me that learning a
particular technology changed the course of his life. As a teenager, he decided to
sit down at a typewriter. Investing hours in developing the skill of typing, he
became quite fast at the keyboard. When the Coast Guard learned of this ability,
they sent him alone by train, then by boat, to a remote and secret radar station in
Newfoundland, Canada, where he coded and decoded messages about the
locations of enemy ships and submarines in the Atlantic.
After the war, his skills led him to study journalism, get his degree, then begin
work at a newspaper. He watched homes fitted for indoor plumbing, and radio
move to television. He went from using the telegraph in the service to using the
telephone to conduct business. In his decades as a reporter, then editor, my
grandfather transitioned from a manual typewriter to a series of electric versions,
then to an early computer, and later to a personal computer. In his nineties, he
purchased and began using an iPad.
I admire his approach to technology because he considered each new invention
as a tool. From working on farms and in the family iron foundry, he knew that
tools required time and focused attention. Tools entailed practice. He brought
that mindset to the typewriter and to the digital tools he would later adopt.
Videoconferencing software, like Zoom, is a tool. 1 Cal Newport, Professor of
Computer Science at Georgetown University, has explained that digital tools,
like Zoom, are so effortless to pick up and use that we easily forget that they are
complex tools and require this same intentional use and practice. 2 I've designed
this book to help you acquire and practice the skills to use this tool for the
specific purpose of education.
Transitioning from an on-campus classroom to an on-Zoom classroom can
generate some serious anxiety. We don't want to screw it up or look
incompetent. We want to function with confidence and for our students to get the
best possible experience. As you read this book, I hope that it helps you to gain
competency and confidence as a videoconferencing educator. If you’ve been
teaching with videoconference software for a while, this guide will help you
sharpen your skills.
The Essential Idea and Its Implications
As futurists and philosophers like Kevin Kelley and Marshal McLuhan remind
us, every technology comes with latent strengths and weaknesses. And like
every tool, Zoom has certain tendencies. The essential idea of this book is that
Zoom was built for conversations. It was designed for dialogue and discourse.
This essential idea has two major implications.
First, we must cultivate an active learning environment. To use
videoconferencing for 100% lecture is like using a butter knife to tighten a
screw. It kind of works, but we are forcing the tool and go against the grain of its
design. Based on this essential idea, Online Teaching with Zoom will help you
create and support an active learning remote classroom. The good news is that
this does not require you to reinvent your lessons. Instead, we’ll look at ways to
adapt your material and lead your learners in this unique space.
Second, we must learn how to set up and facilitate Zoom Breakout groups.
Breakout groups are the most important and powerful educational tool in our
Zoom toolbox. They allow us to split our larger classroom into smaller learning
teams. However, learning groups don’t work out-of-the-box. Teaching and
learning in breakout groups requires understanding group dynamics, some
preparation, and skill in facilitating learning teams. Part 4: Working with
Breakout Groups is a guide to building spaces where learners can thrive in
collaborative and discussion-driven learning experiences.
Online Teaching
Videoconferencing opens the door to a variety of blended and hybrid formats,
different ways of combining asynchronous and synchronous delivery. It’s
beyond the scope of Online Teaching with Zoom to explore these in detail.
Instead, these pages focus on a very specific form of online teaching: the
synchronous video experience. Still, you will find the principles, practices, and
tips in this book transferrable to any online format where you use
videoconferencing as a teaching tool.
How to Use this Book
I've written this book in the trenches alongside teachers and students. Its pages
are a response to their questions about how to teach and learn in this new virtual
space. Educators have an incredible volume of work, and we are always short on
time. That's why this book will skip the history and development of
videoconferencing. It's not our purpose to discuss telecommunication theories.
Online Teaching with Zoom is more of a guidebook you can consult to get
started in the videoconferenced classroom and a quick-reference manual for
structuring your class sessions and facilitating interaction in the Zoom
classroom.
Part 1: The Technical Stuff is designed to help you become proficient with
Zoom and its features. It's not a detailed technical manual, but a higher-level
guide intended to address the essential elements. Our goal is to get the
technology out of the way so that we can focus on teaching and learning. If
you're looking for a more detailed set of technical instructions, you can find the
best resource at Zoom's Support site. 3 Because software is continuously updated,
I've attempted to focus only on those technical elements that are more enduring.
Part 2: A Recipe for Success roots our teaching in the student experience. It
asks, "How do students experience the videoconferenced classroom?" and
“Being aware of this, how can educators create a classroom environment most
conducive for learning?" The second chapter in this segment details a set of
classroom protocols. These will help your learners get their learning space
squared away and come to class ready to contribute to the learning community.
Part 3: Active Learning in Zoom provides thirty different active learning
methods, a list of key practices for adapting your instruction, and ten practices
for facilitating learning in an active learning experience.
Part 4: Working with Breakout Groups explores how to create effective
learning teams. These chapters will help you set up groups, set expectations, and
develop Zoom Preps and discussion guides. Part 4 concludes with a chapter to
help you develop the critical skills for facilitating learning in Zoom breakouts
and large group discussions.
Part 5: Improving our Game contains a final chapter on how we can leverage
the tools in Zoom to create opportunities for student feedback, then use that
feedback to improve our teaching.
The Companion Website: Software is regularly updated. Because screenshots
and images in this book would quickly become outdated, I’ve instead created a
website to host the visual elements, like screenshots and tutorials. This
companion website also includes downloadable resources and links to many of
the book's referenced materials. (In an effort to make the book available before
the Fall 2020 term, the book will be published before the website is complete).
The site is organized by chapters so that you can quickly find the information.
You can access the site at https://excellentonlineteaching.com/online-
teaching-with-zoom-resources
Bonus Material: Finally, I have a gift for you: 5 Bonus Chapters that you can
download from the Online Teaching with Zoom companion site. These are like a
cookbook, containing one chapter on how to structure Zoom sessions and four
chapters of teaching and learning templates. You can access the bonus material
at https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-bonus
Let's start teaching with Zoom!
 THE EQUIPMENT

No matter how long you have been using a tool, endless upgrades
make you into a newbie—the new user often seen as clueless. In this
era of 'becoming’, everyone becomes a newbie. Worse, we will be
newbies forever. That should keep us humble."
— Kevin Kelly, The Inevitable: Understanding the 12
Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

OUR GOAL in Part 1 is to become teachers who are proficient with our tools so
that we can focus on our teaching and our students' learning. We experience
anxiety when learning a new technology, especially when we have twenty,
tuition-paying, digital native students watching us. We are not aiming for
mastery. However, that will come with time and practice. Right now, we want to
set a strong technical foundation. We'll start by looking at the equipment you
need to create a warm and inviting learning experience.
Most teachers are not enamored with technology. For some of us, it's a necessary
evil. We love teaching. And we don't want to get diverted by fixing technical
issues or sidetracked by non-essential software features. In short, we want to get
the tech out of the way so that our students can have the best possible
experience. This chapter helps you to do just that. We’ll look at the essential
pieces of equipment you'll need and review a few details on how to set things up
so that you can deliver an uninterrupted and quality experience to your students.
You'll find updated links to some of the equipment mentioned in this chapter at
the Online Teaching with Zoom website. 1
First, Audio is Everything
You can lose your video signal and still communicate. Lose your audio, and the
session is over. Because of this, we need to start by prioritizing audio. Mediocre
audio quality is tolerable in short meetings, but first-rate audio becomes vital for
longer and regular teaching sessions. The more energy our learners must exert to
hear and understand what we are saying, the less energy they have at their
disposal for the hard work of learning. Because only our students hear our voice,
we can easily overlook audio quality. This is why it’s so important to test our
audio by recording and listening to a short segment.
Most devices come with an adequate microphone built into them. However, we
won't know our sound quality until we test it. To check, log in to your
videoconferencing software and play with the audio settings. In Zoom, you can
access a test meeting room at https://zoom.us/test. In the audio settings, you can
record a small segment and replay your audio. Record your voice and replay it a
few times, giving attention to the volume, the way sound bounces off the walls
of your space, and ambient noise or buzzing. Does your voice sound full and
pleasant? Or does the microphone limit the range of your voice and make it feel
distant or anemic? If you plan to teach this way often, you will want to purchase
a quality microphone, one that picks up the full range of your voice, so that your
audio is warm and full, giving your students a more pleasant experience. (I’ll
publish a list of several USB and Bluetooth microphones at the Online Teaching
with Zoom webpage for this chapter).
With a desktop microphone, the volume and tonal change as we move around.
It’s important to place our microphone close to us and to keep it at the same
distance from our mouth throughout the session. Closer proximity to the mic
allows it to pick up the full range of our voice and gives our students a consistent
experience.
Headsets and earbuds help to localize sound. Because earbud and headset
microphones stay at a fixed distance from our mouth, the audio volume and
quality remain the same. The drawback of a headset is that it makes you look
like an air traffic controller. It may not seem like a big deal, but a headset puts
the tech visually out front, and it’s our goal to move the tech into the
background.
Bluetooth earbuds are less conspicuous, and their noise-canceling features make
a notable difference by eliminating background noise. Apple and Bose both
make more expensive, high-quality Bluetooth earbuds, but there are some
reliable and less-expensive options available. However, I’ve noticed that most
Bluetooth earbuds, including Apple's AirPods Pro, can make the speaker sound
like they are talking into a tin can. I’ve observed that most wired earbuds
provide superior audio to the Bluetooth versions. At the end of the day, I prefer
not to be tethered. For that reason, I use a desktop USB microphone. (See the
companion webpage for this chapter where I test a variety of microphones).
After plugging in a USB microphone or connecting a Bluetooth device, you’ll
need to select it within audio settings. In the bottom left-hand corner of the
Zoom window, you’ll see a microphone icon. There is an up-arrow just to the
right of the icon. Click on this to reveal the audio menu. Next, select the correct
microphone from the list.
Your Backup Microphone
"Two is one, and one is none." That quote is from one of my broadcasting
professors in college. It means you always need to think through your backup
equipment. When for no discernible reason, your microphone isn't working,
what will you use as your backup? Know how to switch back over to your built-
in computer audio quickly. The key is being ready. Invest a few minutes getting
used to the audio controls in Zoom, or your other videoconferencing software,
by practicing the switch between different audio devices.
Your Camera
You will need an HD camera that you can position at eye level. Most of the time,
a built-in laptop or desktop camera will suffice. From testing several external
HD webcams, I've found that Logitech makes the best quality and most reliable
product. They rest on the top of a monitor, and you can adjust them for the best
angle. Most of these webcams contain built-in microphones, but the audio is
usually mediocre. Because of this, I still recommend using one of the audio
solutions recommended above.
Your camera's angle is a critical element, and its importance is too often
overlooked. The camera angle and your posture will communicate an ongoing
and tacit message to your students. Filmmakers will tell you that camera angles
are their go-to tool for conveying their message, especially power dynamics—
and power dynamics impact learning. Here is a quick overview of what different
camera angles communicate:

Camera positioned below eye-level: We are looking down onto our

learners and inadvertently expressing dominance. It is also less than
flattering because the shot features our neck and highlights our nostrils.
Camera positioned above eye-level: We are looking up to our students.
If you're short like me, perhaps you're accustomed to this. On camera,
this can inadvertently communicate passivity and a lack of authority.
Camera positioned from the side or at an irregular angle: This
communicates that things are off-kilter, disorganized, or that we are
inattentive and unaware.
Camera positioned at eye-level: This communicates we are all on a
level playing field and that things are stable.

Laptops require some creativity to get at eye-level. The best solution is an

adjustable standing desk, the kind you can place on top of an existing
workspace. Not only does this help us set the right camera angle, but it also
allows us to alternate between sitting and standing. If you need a temporary
solution, find a box or use a stack of books to raise your laptop to eye-level.
Once I've positioned my camera, I often need to adjust my chair height. It's easy
to forget this low-tech feature built into most office chairs. It's a quick and easy
way to get at eye-level with your camera and students.
If you are using a phone or tablet, you'll need a way to keep your device
stationary and stable. I don't recommend using mobile devices for
videoconference teaching because they have some software limitations. They
reduce screen size, and I find it more challenging to share presentations and
documents with them. However, if this is your only or primary device, acquire
an adjustable device holder that you can attach to your desk.
Your Monitor
For many of us, our main computer is a laptop, so we sacrifice screen size for
portability. The more I teach with Zoom, the more I'm convinced that an external
monitor is a necessity. Monitor size becomes even more important when we
have larger classes and need to accommodate more students on the screen. If,
like me, you wear glasses, or just experience eye strain at work, then seriously
consider acquiring a larger external monitor to care for your eyes. Additionally,
with an external monitor, you can take advantage of the dual-screen features
built into Zoom, like putting your presentation on one screen and your students
on the second screen.
For both benefit and cost, I've found that a 32-inch monitor is optimal for
videoconferencing. The key feature you want to look for is that it has the correct
input for your computer. For most of us, that's going to be an HDMI cable input.
In addition to the monitor, you'll need the correct type of HDMI cable that will
connect with your computer's output. (See this chapter’s companion webpage for
links to monitors).
Student Equipment
Your course syllabus or classroom protocols should state that participation in the
course requires a webcam, microphone, and reliable internet connection.
Communicate this in a prominent place on your course site and your syllabus
and repeat it in your course messaging. Beyond this, we have little control over
what devices students may use to access our class. Some will use phones, and
others will use laptops or tablets. The most important thing is that they know
how to access your Zoom classroom with their particular device and to test it
before class. If you can recommend one piece of equipment to your students that
will make the most difference for everyone's experience, it is to ask them all to
wear headsets or earbuds. These cut out ambient noise and make it possible to
have an unmuted classroom, something I'll recommend in future chapters. If
students have no other choice but to access the virtual classroom using public
WiFi, then headsets or earbuds are a necessity.
Besides these basic tech requirements, I share with my students some technical
responsibilities and protocols for the course. We'll address at those in a later
chapter on Classroom Protocols, and I'll provide you with an editable protocol
document at the Online Teaching with Zoom website. 2
I want to end this chapter with an important statement: Good Enough is Good
Enough. I don't want you to read this and feel like you have to go out and drop
$500 on equipment. Start with what you have and add to your toolbox in
increments. See what you can borrow from your school or friends. Test things
out to see what works best for you.
 PREPARE YOUR CLASSROOM

Man must shape his tools, lest they shape him."

— Arthur Miller

ALL OF US need a cheat sheet when we are trying out something new. Think of
this chapter as your cheat sheet or pre-flight checklist before stepping into your
Zoom classroom. I work at a graduate school, and our instructors like to arrive at
least twenty minutes early to class. They set up their equipment, make sure there
are no technical issues, arrange furniture, and get any other logistical stuff out of
the way. That's what we are doing here. Work through this list, and you'll be
ready and feel prepared to teach in this new space.
#1 Get in there and Play
Click into your Zoom room and spend time getting oriented. Become acquainted
with all of the features. Don't worry; you're the only person in the room and you
can't break anything. Just like a sports practice, work through some drills. Here's
a sample list of some of the things you can work through:

Run through all your audio and video settings. As mentioned in the
previous chapter, switch back and forth between your audio devices.
Open your Participants list and click through all the buttons, including
the mute all, and unmute all buttons. You can turn on and off an
individual participant’s audio as well, but you will need a colleague to
join you in the meeting to test this feature.
Zoom has keyboard shortcuts for muting and unmuting as well as for
many of its other functions. Review these at their website and practice
using the shortcuts you expect will come in handy. 1
Click into Chat and send a message to everyone.
Share a file via Chat. (This requires that you have file sharing enabled
in your Zoom settings).⁠ 2
Mute/Unmute your audio in the bottom control bar.
Try out the different reactions (also in the bottom control bar).
Click on Record button. Pause the recording, resume it, then stop the
recording.
Stop your video, then restart it. Learning to start and stop video quickly
becomes important for when you take breaks.
Click on the Poll button and create a quick question.
Click on Share to screen share a presentation, a document, your
desktop, and the whiteboard. Switch back to your camera by clicking on
Stop Share.
Share another document, then click Stop Share. Going back and forth
from Share to the main screen will likely be the thing you do most
often.
Ask a couple of colleagues or friends to join you in practicing Breakout
Rooms. Create two breakouts, rename them, explore the options menu
in the breakouts, exit breakouts. Do this several times, and take turns
being in the student role so that you can get a feel for what it's like to be
a participant.
If you've not taught a class with Zoom before, this will probably be the best 20-
30 minutes you will invest. The familiarity you gain will replace fear and
apprehension with a sense of confidence in this new space.
I'm going to get a bit psychological for a moment. From my experiences
teaching amazing and squirrelly high school students, I learned to think of my
classroom as "my territory." When you step into my room, I own the space, and I
set the tone and culture in that space. I think it's helpful to have this same
mindset with my Zoom classroom. Students desire a strong, clear, and more
directive leadership style from their instructors when they enter a new and
disorienting space like this. Your competence with the technical basics of the
Zoom classroom is the foundation for your sense of ownership. Your students
will sense this within the first few minutes of class.
#2 Lighting Essentials
Eliminate any bright light sources behind you and place a soft, diffused light
source in front of you. A bright light source behind you will constrict the
aperture on your camera and darken your image, sometimes making it
impossible to see your facial features. Two of my siblings have hearing
impairments. It's essential to have a clear view of a person's lips to discern what
they are saying. Because of this, good lighting is also an issue of accessibility for
many students.
If you can't avoid a rear light source, like a window, close the blinds or curtains
to diffuse and reduce its intensity. Overhead lighting or a lamp in the
background can blast students with light and cause similar problems. Turn them
off or reposition your camera so that these light sources are not within your
screen. However, you may encounter the opposite problem and not have enough
light. To your students, you end up looking like Emperor Palpatine from Star
Wars. The most straightforward solution is to sit in front of a window and adjust
the blinds to get the right amount of light. If that's not possible, consider
purchasing an inexpensive ring lamp with adjustable light levels and tones.⁠
#3 Eye Contact and Appearance
Make eye contact with your students by looking directly into the camera or at
least near your camera. Looking directly into the camera can feel strange at first
and easy to forget. A helpful trick is to draw a smiley face or get a smiley face
sticker and stick it on your computer next to the camera. It's silly, but it works.
Take a few moments to observe yourself in the camera preview. Most of us want
to avoid looking at ourselves, but we need to be aware of how we appear to our
students. One student shared with me, "It drives me crazy how many of my
teachers have their laptops set up like this—with their cameras cutting off part of
their face or looking up their nose." Light and medium tone shirts tend to play
better on camera than dark shirts. Avoid striped and patterned shirts (like
herringbone) as these can create a moiré pattern that can be incredibly
distracting. A moiré pattern is an optical phenomenon where the patterns in
clothing appear to jitter, swim, or shift. This makes it hard for our viewers’ eyes
to focus and creates unnecessary cognitive demand.
Make sure your camera is stable. I once observed an instructor teaching from a
laptop on his lap while rocking in a rocking chair. I think we all got seasick
during that session. Even though it's called a laptop, don't place your computer
on your lap. This creates too much camera movement and amplifies the I'm-
looking-down-on-you angle.
#4 Avoid Teaching in Public Spaces
Avoid using public wireless for Zoom sessions—unless that is your only option.
Busy settings like airports, coffee shops, or co-working spaces may be okay for a
one-on-one conversation with a student or a quick meeting. We grow
accustomed to this, but such areas with ambient noise and movement distract our
students. In other words, just because it's possible doesn’t mean it's a good idea.
The number of users on a public network will limit your bandwidth and may
impair your connection. Teaching outdoors presents similar issues. Wind noise,
barking dogs, nearby traffic, can all interfere with our audio. Additionally, being
outdoors often puts us outside the optimal range of our wireless router, resulting
in connection problems.
#5 Test Your Connection and Your Internet Bandwidth
If teaching from home, you may need to make sure family members are not
streaming movies or playing online video games during Zoom sessions.
However, much will depend on the bandwidth provided by your internet service
provider. If you are teaching from a work setting, you'll want to test your
connection before the session to ensure a company firewall will not block your
access. (See the companion webpage for this chapter for resources to test your
internet bandwidth and review Zoom’s bandwidth requirements). 3
#6 Arrive Early
Just as you arrive early to prepare for your on-campus classroom, plan to sign in
early to your online Zoom classroom. Use this time to prepare and open any
documents for screen sharing, test your equipment, and converse with students
who come to class early. Compared to most classrooms, the Zoom classroom is
technically complicated. By getting in early, you simplify things, creating
margin for yourself and space to connect with your students.
#7 Send A Reminder
Before your first session, email your students to remind them to test their
equipment before the meeting. Provide your students with the Zoom Test Room
link in your course site and your messaging.⁠ 4 I've provided an email template on
the Online Teaching with Zoom website you can copy, customize, and send to
your students.⁠ 5
#8 Be Ready for the Worst
Know how to mute your students' microphones and how to shut down their
video stream. Think of this as knowing where to get the fire extinguisher in case
there is a fire. Like extinguishing fires, muting participants should not become a
regular practice. However, we need to know how to shut things down quickly
when encountering the rare circumstance of a student and spouse argument or a
student who has thought they turned off their camera and is changing their
clothes.
#9 Provide a Single Entrance to Your Classroom
Provide your students with one link to your online Zoom meeting that they can
revisit for every meeting in their semester, quarter, etc. Scheduling multiple
meetings takes unnecessary work and creates confusion. The exact definition of
Murphy's Law applies here: if you give people more than one way to do
something, they are more likely to choose the wrong way. For instance, one
teacher I know set up unique meetings in different weeks of her course site.
During week four, she accidentally went into the week-three meeting room. She
was in there for a long time, wondering why none of her students were showing
up for class.
Zoom now has a scheduling feature built into their LMS integrations. (LMS
stands for Learning Management System, such software as Moodle, Blackboard,
Canvas, etc.) These integrations are great because they provide another layer of
security. Students must first log in to the LMS the Zoom meeting link. It
simplifies things by generating a single module within the course site for your
students to access the class meetings. Additionally, the LMS integration will
create an archive of any recorded class sessions and organize them by date.
(LMS Integrations are only available for institutions with an upgraded account).
Now that you have the basics down and your classroom set up, let's address how
to handle technical difficulties.
 TESTING AND TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES

A computer once beat me at chess, but it was no match for me at

kickboxing.”
— Emo Philips

“IT JUST WORKS” is the tagline Zoom users bestowed on the software. I’ve
found this to be accurate, especially when comparing Zoom with other video
conferencing solutions. The others required Adobe Flash and Java updates that
got in the way by causing technical interruptions. Regardless of the video
conferencing software you choose, there will always be the weakest link in the
chain, something beyond your control. The weakest links are typically the
equipment used by individual students and their internet connection. And the
more students you have in your Zoom classroom, the more likely you are to run
into technical difficulties. Technical interruptions should be the exception, but
we all need a plan for when these occur.
Head It Off at the Pass
First, the good news: Most of these issues can be identified and corrected before
your class session by requiring your students to test their equipment. As
mentioned in the previous chapter, direct them to the Zoom Test Room link or
an equivalent URL for your video conferencing software. 1 Here your students
can click into and adjust their audio and video settings. By selecting the correct
camera and mic on their device, they will get a visual and audio preview to
verify their audio and video are working. Now that they are also familiar with
the interface, they can go in and make changes quickly.
During testing, we’ve had students encounter the Red Screen Issue. Instead of
seeing their video, students see a red screen, or perhaps just black. On newer
devices, this is caused by a plastic privacy shield that they can slide over their
camera lens. The solution is so easy that it’s humorous: slide or lift the shield
away from the camera. This problem typically happens to students who are not
yet familiar with their new devices.
A similar and more common issue comes into play with microphones that have
an on/off switch. Again, the solutions are easy to overlook. They are as simple as
turning the microphone switch to the ON position, or going into the computer
software and unmuting the computer microphone.
On occasion, a student will experience significant or recurring technical issues.
Here’s my rule of thumb: unless it’s something you can solve in 15 seconds,
don’t try to resolve your students’ technical problems. Instead, create an If You
Have Technical Difficulties section in your course site or syllabus. You can
download an editable template for this at the Online Teaching with Zoom site. 2
These instructions direct the student first to leave the session and rejoin. Often
this reconnects video and audio devices and fixes the problem. If that doesn’t
resolve the issue, have them reach out to a classmate who may be willing to help
or ask them to contact your institution’s technical Help Desk. If they can receive
audio, they can continue to listen, and they can participate by typing into the chat
window, then work with tech support to figure things out after class. If it’s a
poor connection issue, then it can only be remedied by students improving their
WiFi connection by getting closer to the router, hardwiring their computer using
an ethernet cable, or by contacting their internet service provider. When all else
fails, students can connect using Zoom’s join meeting by phone option. 3
Because student-side technical issues can be difficult and time-consuming to
diagnose, you want students first to know that they are responsible for finding
the solutions. Second, you want to direct them to the professionals at your
institution who have the time and expertise to serve them. Referring students to
the experts doesn’t mean you are hanging them out to dry. You are directing
them to the best steps and best resources—during the middle of teaching a class,
this is not going to be you.
Your Backup Plan
What if your equipment or connection fails? This is the situation you want to
rehearse and perhaps type out. As with student technical difficulties, don’t spend
much time troubleshooting. Instead, be decisive and promptly communicate your
plan to your students. Here are a few scenarios and how I recommend we
respond:

If you have a very poor internet connection and cannot proceed with
class: open Chat and tell your students you will have to end the session.
Before closing the meeting, wait for students to read your message and
to chat back with any questions. Let them know you’ll be on Chat for
another 5 minutes to take questions. Follow up immediately with an
email to the group to instruct them on how you will reschedule the
session or other means of accomplishing the work.
If your connection is good, but you have no audio or video: bring up the
Chat window and communicate that you are going to close out the
session and return to see if that will fix the problem. If that doesn’t fix
the problem, proceed the same way as the first scenario.
If you have audio, but can’t get the video to work, and you’ve already
left and rejoined the meeting without the problem resolving: inform
your students that you’ll be participating via audio-only and continue
with the class.

With that out of the way, we are now going to move into chapters on specific
teaching tools and how to use them effectively: Sharing, Chat, Breakouts, and
Polls.
 SHARING

Don't tell me the moon is shining; show me the glint of light on

broken glass."
― Anton Chekhov
Does This Sound Familiar?
“WHERE IS THAT STUPID GRAPH?" She said this under her breath, low
enough so that none of her students could hear. But they did hear because her
microphone amplified her muttering. Adrian began searching through her
computer files. “What did I name that thing?” Looking past her file manager
window, she could see fourteen pairs of eyes on the screen staring back at her
and waiting. "Okay, well, I can't seem to find it, so how about we skip that, and
we'll pick up there next week. In the fifteen minutes we have left, do any of you
have questions?" Commence awkward pause. Awkward pause continues. "Well,
since nobody has any, let's conclude for today, and I'll see you next week."
Our greatest fear with technology is that it will make us look stupid—stupid in
front of a bunch of people, stupid in front of a bunch of people who are supposed
to think we are smart (at least smart enough to be teaching this class). Whether
it's giving a presentation at an event and our fonts get all screwed up, or like in
this short story, it's in front of a small group of students, we want to share our
content without hitting a snag. In this chapter, I want to "unsnag" the process of
sharing content by giving you ten sharing best practices.
#1 Declutter Your Screen
When clicking on the Share button, Zoom is going to give us a whole bunch of
choices, including every open window on our computer. While writing this
chapter, I did a quick test, and the share feature gave me eight different options,
plus advanced options. This array of options is necessary, but it's also
overwhelming. We can rein this in by first closing all unnecessary programs and
windows. In addition to simplifying things, it frees up memory and processing
power on our computers. Because all video conferencing software demands a lot
of resources from a computer, this decluttering is critical.
Now, it's time to tidy up the visual space on the desktop. Because it's likely
you'll share your entire screen (the default option in Zoom), take some time to
clean up your desktop files. Set the background to something that's not-too-busy,
something that reflects who you are, and might even be a helpful conversation
piece.
#2 Notifications and Messaging
Imagine teaching a class, and an email notification pops onto your screen, one
that includes the name of a student facing disciplinary action. Or imagine you've
left your text messaging software on, and your partner sends you a playful note
—not something you want your learners reading. Before you begin using screen
sharing in class, figure out how to turn off those email and text notifications and
close windows that contain private information, such as student grades.
#3 Open Your Files
Before your session, open the presentations you'll be using, access the websites
you'll be sharing, and any other documents or programs you'll need. Opening so
many windows may sound like the opposite of my declutter recommendation.
However, these are the essential tools you need for class, and for them to appear
in your share options, Zoom needs these open before you initiate share screen.
Are there questions you'll send to breakout groups via Chat? Put them in a text
document and have it ready so you can copy and paste the text into the chat
window. Think of this as getting all your paints out on the palette before you
begin painting. This little practice will impress your students, and for a few
minutes in the day, someone may just believe that you've got it all together.
#4 Share for Presentation, Not Conversation
When you share the slides, a website, or a document, the screen share will
monopolize the screen and reduce the number of students who are visible to you.
This screen takeover is okay during lecture segments or while explaining
instructions for an activity. However, the shared screen essentially hides the
participants, making it difficult to have a discussion. So, if you are shifting
between lecture and discussion, learn to stop the screen share when you pose a
question or invite conversation.
#5 Practice, Practice, Practice
At the time of this writing, Stop Share is a small, red button under the floating
toolbar in Zoom. This makes going in and out of screen sharing a bit difficult.
Because of this, it’s worth spending some time to start Share, Stop Share, Start
Share (with the whiteboard this time), Stop Share…you get the point. I'd also
recommend docking your Zoom toolbar to the top-right of your screen so that
your controls are always in the same location as you move between the different
views.
#6 Annotation
This feature allows us to markup our presentation as you talk. We can draw over
top of slides or a document, spotlight portions of text, and type comments over
the item we’re sharing. When granted permission, students can annotate on any
shared screen, document, or whiteboard. Play with annotations and consider
creative ways to leverage them in your teaching. (See the companion webpage
for this chapter for more on annotations.) 1
A Brief Reflection
Let's pause here for a moment to get just a tad philosophical. Why do we share
stuff in the first place? Why do we want our students to see our presentation, a
short video, or to work from a shared document? Perhaps it's to visualize
complex concepts and data or to illustrate a new idea. However, I believe our
most deep-rooted reasons for sharing go beyond pedagogy. Our desire to share
starts well before our first show-and-tell time in kindergarten. What's the first
thing a child does when grandma and grandpa walk through the door for
Christmas dinner? They take them right to their gifts and tell them all about
them. Sharing is a human act of generosity. It's a desire for others to partake in
the joy of our experience. As teachers, when we share, we make a human
connection with our students. As you go about learning these technical ins and
outs, remember that it's more than just figuring out the systems. Through
sharing, I believe we are creating a more human and welcoming experience in
your online classroom.
#7 Collaborative Documents.
I think this is one of the most effective ways to work with breakout groups.
Fruitful breakout discussions have a clear question-set or guide for the
discussion. We'll get into the nuts and bolts of this in the chapter on discussion
guides, but here's the basic vision for how you can share collaborative docs.
Create a Google or OneDrive doc, grab the link, and post it to your LMS or in
the Chat. As the conversation progresses, students can add their insights and
questions to the sheet. When you return to the plenary session, you can screen
share the full document. 2 I love this as a teacher because I can capture and see
my students' learning process. It's all right there in front of us in black and white
text.
#8 Sharing Presentations
Many educators and presenters support their teaching with a slide presentation.
When presenting slides through Zoom, we are simultaneously running two
complex pieces of software, Zoom and our presentation program—and they
don’t always cooperate. This creates some limitations that we need to be aware
of before presenting.
Presentation Eclipse
The main reason presentations can be problematic in Zoom is that presentation
programs display in full-screen mode. In full-screen mode, your presentation
fills your screen, hiding some of your Zoom controls and the gallery window of
students' thumbnails. Imagine pressing a slideshow button in your brick-and-
mortar classroom and all your students disappearing or shrinking into the corner
of the room. That could create some serious anxiety. As I talk with educators
who teach with video conferencing, this vanishing student phenomenon is
their most common frustration. I call it presentation eclipse. My hope is that
presentation software will eventually create add-ins and updated features to fix
this, but at the time of this writing, we have to learn one key practice and employ
some workarounds.
The key practice is to get familiar with the keyboard shortcuts that reveal all the
open programs/windows on your computer. Knowing our shortcuts is essential,
especially if we have a single-screen setup. In Microsoft Windows, this is the
Windows + Tab keys, and for Mac, it's typically the F3 key or CMD+Tab
shortcut. These shortcuts will be how we find the Zoom window when it
disappears behind a presentation.
The first workaround is to use dual monitors, an external monitor in addition
to your primary laptop or desktop screen. In Zoom, this allows you to place your
presentation on one screen and your students on the other. The dual-monitor
solution will enable us to use our presentation, preserving any transitions and
animations. However, it will not work with presenter view (more on that in a
moment).
Note: Hang in here with me because these next several paragraphs get technical.
I promise this is as technically complicated as the book gets. I don't like
including detailed instructions like this in a book because a) they are hard to
follow, b) they quickly become outdated, and c) we want to focus on the
teaching more than the tech. (Feel free to scan this next segment and access the
tutorials and most up-to-date information on the Online Teaching with Zoom
webpage for this chapter).
The second workaround is for single-screen setups. This workaround allows
you to share complete slides and view your students, but you lose slide builds,
transitions, or other animations. To do this, first open any presentation created in
PowerPoint, Keynote, or Google Slides. Export it as a PDF. Open the PDF,
turning on the thumbnail view so that you can see a table of contents of your
slides in the sidebar of your PDF viewer. Size the slides to fit within the left-half
side of your screen. Now, share it using the portion of screen method in the
advanced tab of share. Resize Zoom's green rectangle with your mouse,
adjusting it to the frame the current slide.
Next, you'll want to resize the window of student's faces and place them on the
right side of the screen. To do this, click on the gallery view icon at the top-right
of the student thumbnails window. Now, drag the bottom corner out to expand
the window and fill the right-hand side of your screen. Doing this will maximize
the number of student thumbnails in the window. Your slides will now be on the
left half of your screen and your students on the other half. This is my preferred
way to present using a single screen because it gets the complicated presentation
software out of the way and helps me to focus on teaching. I lose the fancy
transitions and animations, but in most cases, those are icing on the cake, and
usually of little educational value.
Presentation View/Presenter View
Many of us rely on PowerPoint or Keynote presenter view to view our upcoming
slides and our teaching notes. If this is you, I have some bad news: presenter
view does not cooperate well with video conferencing software like Zoom.
Again, in presentation/presenter mode, your students will disappear. You might
think that having dual monitors would fix this, but it doesn't. In presenter mode,
the presentation overtakes both screens and hides your students behind the
presentation. They can see you and the presentation, but you will not be able to
see them. This limitation presents a significant impediment for educators who
have built a high volume of material into the notes pane of their presentations.
One low-tech workaround is to print your teaching notes and work from the
hardcopies, presenting using one of the workarounds mentioned above. A second
workaround is more complex and requires a second computer to share content.
Because this is challenging to describe in text and has multiple steps, I'll share
this as a tutorial on the Online Teaching with Zoom webpage for Chapter 4⁠.
A third workaround for a single screen setup will hide your students, but it
allows you to see your notes while only sharing your current slide. This
workaround works with PowerPoint but not with Keynote. 3 First, go into the
presenter view of PowerPoint to initiate your slide presentation. As mentioned
earlier, your Zoom window and tools will disappear behind the presentation. Use
the Windows + Tab or Mac F3 shortcut to find and select your Zoom Window.
Next, go to Share on the Zoom toolbar. Next, in the Zoom sharing options, select
advanced (at the top of the share window), then select to share portion of screen.
You'll see a green rectangle appear over top of your PowerPoint screen. That's
your active sharing window. Move it around and adjust the edges of the box to
frame just the active slide area of presenter view. This active portion will now
share only the current slide to your students.
#9 Sharing Video
With Zoom, you can share streaming video and its audio with your students. It's
as simple as sharing your screen, but there is one critical item you can't forget.
When you initiate Share, you need to select share computer sound at the bottom-
left of the share box. If you plan to go full-screen with the video, then you'll also
need to check the optimize for a full-screen box.
Sharing video is demanding on your computer and internet-related resources. So,
make your video sharing strategic and short. I've noticed that longer videos
embedded into a presentation sometimes need time to buffer. This issue may
require you to play a few seconds of the video then pause it to buffer while you
talk with the class for a minute or two. I recommend you provide students with
links to the videos in the LMS course site, course notes, or via the chat window
—that way, they have a backup to access in case sharing the video becomes
problematic. I'm impressed that Zoom software can handle this kind of video
sharing from both files saved to my computer or streaming from online sites.
However, there are too many things that can go wrong with large video files. If
you want students to view longer videos, consider requiring them to watch them
before class instead of sharing them during class.
Many instructors want to use video within a presentation. The most
straightforward approach to this is to embed the video within your presentation.
Essentially, the embed approach allows for your video to play inside the
presentation window. Otherwise, you must exit your presentation, go to a
browser like Chrome/Firefox/Safari or a video file on your computer, locate the
video, and share the video (interrupting the flow of your teaching and adding a
bunch of unnecessary steps). Embedding skips this process.
Here, we need to pause for a technical sidebar: At the time of this version of
Online Teaching with Zoom, Microsoft PowerPoint (the most popular
presentation software) supports embedded online video for the PC version of
their software, but not for Mac. For Mac, you have to download the video and
save it into your presentation, which makes for larger files. Similarly, Apple's
Keynote software allows you to embed downloaded videos. One helpful
workaround is to use the online version of PowerPoint (Office 365), which
allows users to embed a hyperlinked video.
#10 Transition with a Question or Narrate the Invisible
Even when well-prepared, we will experience dead spaces during our sharing.
These are those transitional moments when we are looking for the correct file to
share and trying to do it the right way. Our students can't see what we are doing,
so everything goes quiet. These gaps are good occasions to ask a question and
have students reflect while we transition. Another approach is to keep talking,
narrating what we're doing. "Let's move on. I'm accessing a website that I want
you all to see. It's a project conducted in 2008 by the National Institute of Health
and…" The narration is more than filler because it provides helpful background
information and the rationale for what we're preparing to share. Both practices
are effective ways to maintain attention and iron out the awkward transitions.
A Final Note on Share with Mobile
The Zoom sharing process on mobile devices, like iPads, tablets, and cell
phones, is still kind of clunky. This issue has more to do with the operating
systems of mobile devices than the Zoom software. It's possible to share on these
devices but it has real limits. If you plan to use a mobile device and have a
desktop or laptop option, I'd encourage you to try it out on both and compare the
experience. If you still prefer your mobile device, figure out a good workflow
prior to teaching.
Sharing is one of the two features you'll use most often in Zoom. The second,
and probably most important are breakout rooms, the subject of our next chapter.
 BREAKOUT ROOM BASICS

This is the core skill I need to learn, figuring out how to do the
breakouts. I think that once I get the hang of that, I'll feel
comfortable."
— Graduate Professor of Psychology

BREAKOUT ROOMS (what Zoom calls small-group meetings within a

meeting) may be the most important technical tool in your teaching toolbox. And
the larger the class, the more essential breakout rooms are for creating a
conducive learner-centered teaching environment. In Part 4, we'll explore how to
create and manage effective learning groups. First, we need to acquire the
technical basics. In my work with instructors, I've noticed that those new to
breakout rooms are hesitant to even click on that Breakout Rooms button for fear
their students might disappear into the quantum realm, never to be seen again. In
this short chapter, I hope that by following the steps laid out below, you'll move
from hesitant to confident and ready to become a breakout room master.
How Breakout Rooms Work
I like the analogy of "rooms" because each group you create is essentially taking
place in a different and separate virtual space. If Tessa, Ron, and Elodie are in
Group 1, they can only hear, see, and communicate with each other. This means
they will not be interrupted by other participants—unless you decide to join
them. As the meeting host, you can jump in and out of different breakout rooms
to listen in, coach the conversation, and answer or ask guiding questions.
However, other students, from outside the group, cannot jump into other
breakout rooms. In short, they are in separate spaces.
Breakout rooms first have to be enabled on your account. To do this, login to
your Zoom account settings and toggle the Breakout Rooms setting to on. (See
tutorial.) 1
To practice breakouts, you'll need live participants in your Zoom session.
Because of this, I recommend two things: 1) watch Zoom's tutorial video on how
breakout rooms work. 2 The video gives you the student perspective so that you
have a solid idea of what your learners will experience. 2) Organize a Zoom
meeting with 2 to 4 colleagues or friends and work through the process of
putting people in breakout rooms, moving participants, combining breakout
rooms, exiting breakouts, and going back into breakout rooms.
Once in breakouts, your learners can click on the Ask for Help button to get your
attention. I like to think of this as akin to the Page the Flight Attendant button on
the airplane. To join one of your breakouts, click on a small Join button that's
beside each of the Breakout Rooms (within the Breakout Room options
window). If you need to send a message to all of your breakouts, such as a time-
management message or follow-up question, click on the Broadcast a message
to all button. Type and send your message.
When you end a session, the groups are alerted, and a countdown timer starts on
their screens. You can make this countdown anywhere from 10 seconds to 2
minutes in the Breakout Rooms options window.
Breakout Room Best Practices
#1 Grouping Students
The last thing you want to do is waste 5 minutes of class time fumbling through
the process of assigning participants to the different breakouts. The more
students you have in a class, the more time it will take. There are two different
approaches, and you can implement both of them quickly.
Auto-Assign
Zoom will automatically create groups for you and randomly assign participants.
Just enter how many rooms you want and click on the Create Breakout Rooms
button. A notation above the button will let you know how many participants
Zoom will assign per room. Before deploying, you can adjust the group size by
increasing or decreasing the number of groups. This auto-assign option is the
speedy approach, best suited for: a) short, low-stakes conversations and tasks,
and b) creating variety and diversity in discussions by allowing students to get to
know different people.
Manual Assign
While the auto-assign feature is handy, it does not retain students in the same
groups when going in and out of breakouts. To build group cohesion and
sustained critical thinking, we'll need stable group membership. Thankfully,
Zoom also allows hosts to manually assign groups that will maintain the same
members throughout a Zoom session. Its checkbox system makes this a
relatively quick task. However, there are two logistical keys to making this
efficient.

First, your students must enter their correct names into Zoom. If they
enter the meeting with names like Beiber, Beyoncé, or Lebron James,
you'll have a difficult time grouping your students by name. They can
change their thumbnail title by clicking on their name in the
participants' list or the 3-dot box in the top-right of their video
thumbnail then selecting Rename.
The second key practice is to create a cheat-sheet—especially if you
have a large class. This cheat-sheet is simply a list of groups with the
names of each participant. Don't bury this in your file system. In fact,
 open it before your session begins so that you can quickly bring it up
and load your groups. Better yet, go old school and print off a hardcopy.
Once established, Zoom will remember your groups for the remainder
of the session (but it won't remember them the next time you host a
meeting).

A third alternative allows you to pre-assign Breakout Rooms within the settings
of a scheduled Zoom meeting through the Breakout Room Assignment function.
You can create these manually through the interface or upload a spreadsheet
(.CSV file). You can download the .CSV format and see step-by-step
instructions at Zoom's online Help Center. 3 However, the pre-assign approach
can be problematic because it only recognizes users who log in with the email
recorded in the spreadsheet. If they enter the meeting with a different account,
they will need to be assigned manually.
After employing any of these three methods, you can go in and out of Breakout
Rooms without having to rebuild them.
In talking with students and reading course feedback, students prefer the stability
of regular groups. They also want opportunities to get acquainted with the other
classmates. So, learn to use both auto-assign and the manual methods to create
the stability students need and the variety they enjoy.
#2 Reflection Time (while you build groups)
Similar to screen sharing, when you manually assign groups, you'll have a
couple of minutes of dead space. We all know how this can kill the learning
momentum and sometimes even derail your teaching. To remedy this, give your
groups the first question prompt or initial task to reflect upon while you assign
the breakouts. Have them jot down some notes to bring with them into their
breakouts. Keep the question or task to a simple 1-2 minute segment and allow
enough time for them to complete it before initiating the breakouts.
#3 Set a Timer
Time can speed up and evaporate during breakout sessions, especially if you're
bouncing between the rooms. I use my phone's countdown timer app to notify
me when it's time to end my groups. A more low-tech option is to keep a notes
sheet on your desk and note the begin time of your group, and when they should
conclude. I prefer the timer because I can easily get drawn into a conversation
with a group and lose track of time.
#4 Combining Groups
Instead of bringing all groups back together into one large group, at times, you
may want to combine two groups into a mid-sized group where they can discuss
different viewpoints, share summaries, or perhaps conduct an abbreviated
debate. You can do this by going to your Breakout Room assignments, hovering
over each student in a particular group, then clicking on the move to button, and
selecting the group to which you desire to move them. At the time of this
writing, you still must move individuals. Finally, it's a good idea to first inform
your students before moving them. Broadcast a message to let them know what
you're doing and how much time they have before you move them into the
combined group. That way, they don't just magically get transported into a
different conversation without warning.
Those are the basics. In Part 4: Working with Breakout Rooms, we'll dig deep
into how to teach with breakouts using active learning segments and small group
learning strategies.
 CHAT

It was impossible to get a conversation going. Everybody was

talking too much."
— Yogi Berra

IN ZOOM, you can hear and see each other on streaming video, so why would
you need a text-based chat window? Do we really want side conversations going
during class? Isn't it just a distraction from the learning process?
You can prevent students from chatting with one another, allowing them to only
chat with you, the host of the meeting. However, in this short chapter, I want to
consider the educational value of chat and how you can use this tool to serve
your students better.
The first reason chat is valuable in a learning setting is that it allows you to
communicate with students who are experiencing technical issues. Imagine you
have a student enter the Zoom classroom on day one of class, and they can't get
their microphone to work. A peer or support technician can communicate
privately with the student in the Chat window to help them diagnose problems
and get things fixed. If it's a complex issue, the tech support person can share
their phone number so that they can get connected offline to remedy the
situation.
Chat also levels the internet bandwidth playing field. You may have a student
who lives in a rural area or country where their bandwidth fluctuates. They may
not be able to transmit video and audio but can receive class audio and interact
by asking questions and contributing via the Chat window.
However, the greatest value I've found with chat is the back-channel
conversation that takes place among learners. You've probably attended a
webinar and seen the questions and comments pouring in while the speaker is
talking. Yes, chat can be a distraction, but it can also provide you with priceless
insights into your students' learning process. It can reveal their prior learning,
items you may need to define, questions that could take the learning deeper, and
provides opportunities for students to send resources to one another.
Here are a couple of examples.
Chat #1
Abe: You keep mentioning the importance of building mental models. What
exactly is a mental model?
Charissa: I keep thinking the same thing :)
Trish: It was in our reading in Brown this week, pages 118-20
Abe: Oh…I think I skimmed that ;)
Trish: Yea, but I'm still not sure why it's so important.
Professor response after reviewing chat: "I've been assuming that the reading
gave you all enough info on this concept of mental models. Review the pages
Trish mentioned in the chat. But let's take a few minutes for me to explain why
mental models are so important and perhaps provide you with some examples.
Chat #2
Alex: I found the HBR article on the Bain Pyramid of Value fascinating!
Patrick: Me, too!
Abe: I'd like to see our department at work, use it.
Trish: Same here!
Professor response after reviewing chat: Sounds like the HBR article for this
week was valuable. I was planning a breakout discussion on brand partnerships,
but I wonder if I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. Let's shift gears and discuss the
Bain Pyramid instead.
You can see from the examples of how chat makes learning visible. It gets it out
of their heads and onto the screen, helping you to uncover expert blindspots and
to question your assumptions about what your learners most need. In short, back-
channel chat can make your Zoom classroom more responsive and emergent.
To make this effective, you'll want to include some basic chat protocols. The
most crucial protocol is to stay on topic. In your chat protocol, provide a couple
of examples to help your students discern what passes for a legitimate chat and
what's tangential.
The key teaching discipline for incorporating chat into our Zoom classroom is
knowing when to check it. I like to keep the Chat window offscreen while I'm
lecturing. After I finish teaching, I reference the chat. For instance, after 8-10
minutes of presenting new material, I say, "Okay, I'm going to take a moment to
review the chat before we move on to our breakout groups. I'll be back in just a
moment." This makes the minute or two it takes to scan the chat entries much
less awkward for your students. It is again a good time to have your students
shift into reflection mode by employing one of the shorter active learning
methods described in Part 3: Active Learning with Zoom.
If you have a very large class or are conducting a webinar, you will likely need a
teaching assistant to review, interact with, and curate the chat while you're
teaching. In this case, instead of referencing the chat, you may pause after
lecturing to check in with the TA or moderator, who can draw your attention to
themes in the chat, or the most significant and recurring questions. Alternatively,
if you don't have the resources to provide a teaching assistant for your course,
you can rotate the role between your students, which can help increase their
ownership and sense of responsibility for the learning community and their
learning process.
Finally, it's essential to know when a tool like chat is no longer useful. You've
experienced this with email. After typing several sentences into a reply, you
realize that the conversation would be more efficient and effective as a phone
call (or a Zoom meeting). When chat gets overcrowded, and students are typing
out long responses, it's an indicator that our students are using the wrong tool. If
they are that motivated to converse, then it's time to get them into breakouts for
active learning segments where they can talk.
 7

POLLS

USA Today has come out with a new survey - apparently, three out
of every four people make up 75% of the population."
— David Letterman

IF YOU'VE USED clickers in the classroom or a phone-based technology like

Poll Everywhere, the Zoom polling function provides a similar feature. The Poll
function in Zoom is both a useful educational tool and a great way to add variety
to your class sessions and reengage the attention of your students. You can build
polls to use as a quick pre-assessment at the beginning of class, a way to surface
assumptions, to prime conversations, and for low-stakes quizzing. You can keep
answers anonymous, allowing students to focus more on the question than on
their performance or how others might perceive them, and you can share the
results with the entire class (by clicking the Share Results button).
The most important technical thing to remember about polls is that they are
attached to specific meetings. For example, if you create a poll in your Personal
Meeting Room (PMI), that poll only exists in that particular meeting room. If
you were to schedule a stand-alone meeting or use the Zoom LMS integration to
set up unique meetings, you would need to create the poll questions within those
specific meetings. I mention this because no one wants to spend time creating
polls only to be in class and realize the polls were attached to the wrong meeting.
Like the other tools mentioned in this first part of the book, the best advice is to
play in the sandbox. Set up a meeting or enter your personal meeting room, then
go into the meeting management page for that meeting, scroll to the bottom and
look for the text, "You have not created any poll yet." Click the Add button to
create a poll for the meeting. This button can be a bit difficult to locate because,
at the time of this writing, it's in a small font within a box and not part of a
heading on the page. However, you can always press buttons Control+F to turn
on your browser's find function and search for "poll" to locate it.
Poll questions are multiple-choice, with options that allow students to select
multiple responses or a single answer. You can create polls during a meeting, but
the process can be a bit clunky because it sends you out of the Zoom meeting
window and into a web browser. Because of this, it's best to draft polls prior to
class and strategically integrate them into your instruction.
After building poll questions, start the meeting, and click on the Polling button
to launch your poll. If you have more than one poll, there is a drop-down arrow
at the top of the polling window where you can select the different poll questions
you want to use. This drop-down menu is another element that can be
challenging to locate, so take a minute or two to create a few polls and practice
selecting and deploying them. Click Launch Poll to make it go live and End Poll
to get the results. Share the results with your students by clicking the blue Share
results button at the bottom of the poll. Zoom saves all poll results to your
specific meeting pages in your account at Zoom.us
We explore some creative ways to use polls in Part 3: Active Learning with
Zoom, and you’ll find more examples in the downloadable bonus chapters. 1
 SECURITY

Cybersecurity is a dynamic space. The user faces different

challenges every year because there are always new applications
and data.”
— Ken Xie, CEO of Cybersecurity firm Fortinet

WE ALL WANT A SAFE CLASSROOM. Sadly, over the last 20 years, the
safe haven of our schools and classrooms has become targets and vulnerable
spaces. The digital classroom is not exempt. In the Spring of 2020, when so
many schools went online using Zoom and other videoconferencing platforms,
we learned of "Zoombombings" where uninvited individuals accessed meetings
to harass students and teachers. Other security issues surfaced, and users shifted
from an attitude of implicit trust of videoconferencing technology to deep
concern. Thankfully, Zoom and other providers responded and prioritized
security and privacy features within their software. As stewards of our
classrooms, we are responsible for keeping our virtual classroom as safe and
secure as possible. This means becoming conversant with the security features
and settings in Zoom.
This chapter will cover the basics. It's important to note that security features are
constantly being analyzed and updated, so the best resource for learning the most
current security practices within your videoconferencing platform is to visit the
software's security homepage. You'll find a list of links to the security pages for
Zoom and the other top videoconferencing platforms at the Online Teaching
with Zoom webpage for this chapter. 1
#1 Know Your Account Default Settings
If you're part of an educational institution, your Education Technology or
Information Technology departments should have defined some default security
settings for Zoom that align with your school's standards. A great way to get to
know these is to talk with a member of your tech support team. If you're an
individual user, your account will have some default settings set by Zoom. To
access these settings, log in to Zoom.us, and select My Account. Select Settings
from the left-hand sidebar, then select In Meeting (Basic) to begin working
through your different meeting settings.
#2 Your In-Meeting Security Controls
To access your in-meeting security settings, first, enter a Zoom meeting, then
click the security shield icon in the Zoom toolbar. These settings allow you to:

Lock Meeting: When set, no other participants can join.

Enable Waiting Room: This automatically puts participants in a
holding area. To admit participants to the meeting, you must select their
name from the participants list and admit them into the room.
Allow Participants to Share Screen: If participants are allowed to
share, they can interrupt your teaching with a screen share or perhaps
share inappropriate images or videos. We each have to gauge the
maturity level and know our participants before deciding to allow
access to open sharing. If you need students to share, then you can turn
this feature on and off through the security or share controls.
Allow Participants to Chat: This turns Chat on and off for all
participants. If chat becomes problematic, this allows you to block chat
use. Within your meeting controls, you can limit chat to occur only
between participants and hosts. With this set, students can chat with
you, but it prevents them from chatting with one another.
Allow Participants to Rename Themselves: Renaming allows
students to enter a name different from the name on their account.
Renaming can be problematic because students can type in silly or
inappropriate names.
#3 Login Using Your Institution's Account
Sometime in the past, you may have created a videoconferencing account
separate from the official account established by your school or organization.
Don't teach from this individual, private account. Instead, log in to Zoom, or
other videoconferencing software, using your institutional account. Using your
institution's account will apply your school's default security settings and place
your use under the umbrella of your institution's policies. Your students should
do the same, using the account provided by your organization.
#4 Removing Troublemakers
A friend was teaching a Junior High Math class when a student's behavior
required her to remove the student from the meeting. A minute later, the student
popped back into the meeting and began to disrupt class again. To prevent this,
you'll need to turn off the Allow removed participants to rejoin setting. You'll
find this in your account settings within the In Meeting (Basic) settings set.
#5 Prevent Uninvited Participants (Zoombombers)
One of the things I love about Zoom is that I can send a link to anyone and they
don't have to download a bunch of software or create an account. This feature is
helpful when I want to bring a guest speaker into class who may not have a
Zoom account. However, this level of access creates some real vulnerabilities.
It's like leaving the door open on your front porch. There are several features in
Zoom that you can use to prevent uninvited guests:

Waiting Room: This meeting control puts all participants into a waiting
room when they access the meeting. The host can then admit
participants individually.
Lock Meeting: After everyone is present, then the host can lock the
meeting, preventing anyone else with the meeting link from joining.
Password Protect Meetings: In the meeting settings, you can require a
password for each meeting.

In addition to these features, be discerning in how you share your meeting IDs.
Sharing a Zoom meeting ID or link is like sharing your phone number. Keep this
meeting information within official channels of communication, like your
Learning Management System or institutional email. Avoid posting meeting
links and IDs on social media or other open channels.
#6 Generate Unique Meeting IDs
Every Zoom user gets a PMI, a personal meeting ID. Think of this as your
private phone number within Zoom. Because, like a phone number, this meeting
identifier never changes, it's more vulnerable to access. Anyone who has used
the meeting ID or link can dial into it in the future. If I were to use my PMI for
all my classes, students from my 9 AM class could conceivably access my 11
AM class, and students from my Fall term courses could log into my Spring term
courses. Prevent this by scheduling unique meetings and recurring meetings for
different courses. The easiest way to do this is with a Learning Management
System integration.
#7 Use LMS Integrations
Zoom has integrations with LMS platforms like Moodle, Blackboard, and
Canvas. These enable you to schedule your Zoom meetings within your
Learning Management System, and they help with security because students
(depending on your LMS and Zoom settings) will log in first to your LMS
before they can access the meeting links. (See Zoom’s LMS integrations page
for more information). 2
#8 Disable Join Before Host
Join Before Host allows students to mill around and talk before the host arrives.
This allowance may be just fine for older students, but allowing younger
students to meet in an unsupervised environment can be problematic. You can
switch this on or off in your meeting controls, applying the setting to all of your
meetings or just to an individual meeting. When disabled, a participant will
receive a pop-up box asking them to wait for the host to start the session.
#9 Decide, Don't Default, with Recording
First, familiarize yourself with your school or organization's policies for
recording meetings. If you are recording, Zoom will show an alert to both you
and your participants in the upper-left corner of the screen. However, it’s still
important to tell your students when you intend to record a session. To protect
privacy, only use recording when necessary. In other words, don't make
recording a default setting for your meetings. Recording also impacts what
students are willing to share, so it can hinder conversation and learning.
#10 Keep your Zoom Client Up-to-Date
The Zoom Client is the Zoom software program downloaded onto and running
on your computer. The software should push notifications to you when it needs
to be updated. When you see these, update them. They will apply the latest
security updates and new software features. You can also update the software by
clicking on your profile in the top-right of the Zoom client, then choose Check
for Updates from the drop-down list. I recommend using the Zoom client for all
meetings because it provides users the complete set of features and functionality.
As you work through these settings, you may find some of them defaulted and
locked. This is likely because your school's Zoom administrator has set them
according to internal policies, preventing users from making any changes.
You have completed Part 1: The Technical Stuff. In Part 2: A Recipe for
Success, we shift gears from the technical to the two main ingredients for
success in the Zoom classroom. The first ingredient is understanding what
learners tell us makes for good and bad videoconferencing experiences. The
second ingredient is our classroom protocol document, the standards we set to
help establish the culture and norms of our virtual classroom.
 THE STUDENT PERSPECTIVE

To change ourselves effectively, we first had to change our

perceptions."
― Stephen R. Covey

BEFORE WE DELVE into teaching practices, I want to ground and frame our
practices in the student experience. These pages will ask, from the student's
perspective, "What makes for a successful Zoom session?" and "What are the
common mistakes and traps we should avoid?" I believe it's critical to start with
the learner's perspective because many of the best practices for
videoconferencing assume a meeting environment, not a classroom context. The
student feedback that follows will help us to reframe how we perceive and use
this technology in educational settings. 1
Recipe for a Bad Zoom Session: What Students Say Gets in the Way
#1 "Class drags when it's full of information but no conversation."
Learners log in to the videoconferenced classroom primed to talk and
collaborate. And long periods of lecture feel tedious and stale in this virtual
space. Students' desire for activity and discourse is not unique, but
videoconferencing amplifies it because the technology was built for interaction.
#2 "Those long, awkward pauses—they are the worst."
There are some interesting technical reasons behind why videoconferenced
meetings can feel so clumsy and awkward. Instead of hesitancy, students need
teachers willing to practice a more assertive style of classroom leadership. They
want a participative environment where their peers will "jump in and speak up.”
We'll address these practices in Chapter 13: Facilitating Active Learning and
Chapter 19: Facilitating Breakouts I - Leading.
#3 "There's way too much content and too many activities."
This is by no means unique to the Zoom classroom. In my early years teaching, I
would over-prepare, biting off more than I could chew (or my students could
chew). Recently, I asked a seasoned professor, "What's different for you in this
decade of teaching?" He replied, "I communicate less, probably because I think a
bit less highly of my own thoughts." There is a certain pressure, especially for
young teachers, to cover all of the content. But on the student side, this is
overwhelming. Videoconferencing requires us to slow down and create spaces
for interaction. If this were an equation, it would look like this: Slow Down +
Create Interactive Spaces = Less Time for Material. This presents quite a
challenge to those of us who are adapting our on-campus courses to the on-
Zoom classroom. Similarly, well-intentioned teachers can fill the class period
with disjointed learning activities that disorient and swamp students in
busywork. (Download the bonus chapter on structuring your class sessions along
with over twenty teaching templates at Teaching with Zoom Bonus Materials
page.) 2
#4 "I can tell my teacher didn't take time to figure out the tech."
There is not much to add to this one. You're reading this book, in part, because
you want to become competent with the technology. Your students will notice
and value the investment you’re making to sharpen your technical skills.
#5 "The slide presentation boxed out our conversation."
This happens when we move our class into conversation mode but continue
sharing a slide presentation. In share mode, student thumbnail videos remain on
screen, but they shrink, and fewer students are visible. In effect, the screen share
monopolizes the screen space. This limited view of students restricts their
conversation. Additionally, when slides dominate the screen, we send a visual
and implicit message that students should focus their attention on the
presentation—not on each other. What was effective in helping students focus on
our instruction becomes a hindrance to conversation.
#6 "Where are we going?"
Through years of leading groups, I've learned (mostly by making a lot of
mistakes) that people are dying for someone to tell them the agenda. A good
agenda consists of 1) defining the purpose of the session, and 2) providing a 2-
part or 3-part structure. In other words, our students want us to answer the
perennial questions, "What is our purpose?" and "Where are we going?"
#7 "There are too many (or too few) students for this to work."
A highly participative environment begins to break down when we have 12 or
more learners. This threshold is important to keep in mind. However, it may be
slightly higher or lower depending on the subject matter, your teaching style, and
other contextual factors. Many educators attempt discussions with large groups
of 12 or more without realizing they are, in fact, having a conversation with only
3-4 learners. In such cases, most students are observers. We'll look more at this
in Chapter 16: Breakout Sizes and Dynamics.
Poorly attended sessions can also impede learning because they mitigate the
diversity of voices. Small class sizes can succeed on Zoom, but they often
require the appropriate teaching strategies. One way to guarantee low attendance
is to make videoconferenced sessions supplemental and optional. I've only
witnessed one exception to this: exam study sessions. Optional exam study
sessions tend to be well attended because the class time is directly connected to a
high-stakes, graded item. This has prompted me to ask, "How can I integrate
major projects and other graded elements into the life of my live online
classroom?"
#8 The Unmuted Noisemaker
Imagine a student eating a bag of potato chips into a live microphone. Now
picture a student getting up from their chair to discipline a child—on camera.
These kinds of disruptions will override any possibility of learning. However,
they can be avoided by setting classroom protocols and creating a culture of self-
awareness—more on this in the next chapter.
#9 Unaddressed Droners
A droner is a learner (or an instructor) who dominates the conversation. As a
teacher, it's easy to get siphoned into attempts to manage these students. A more
effective way is to establish group etiquette and a classroom culture that more
naturally keeps this in check. We'll explore this in more detail in Chapter 15:
Group Etiquette and in Chapter 19: Facilitating Breakouts I: Leading.
#10 Unprepared Classmates
Preparation is essential to the success of this highly participative context. When
students say "unprepared," they have two different types of readiness in mind.
First, they expect fellow students to test their equipment before class and learn
the videoconferencing tools so that they can function unhindered in the online
classroom. Second, they expect their peers to have done the advanced work
necessary to have an informed and meaningful conversation in their breakout
groups. This second one is the most important factor. In Chapter 17: Zoom
Preps, we’ll review how to create short prep activities that set your students up
well for class.
Recipe for a Great Zoom Session: What Students Say Works
The following seven student recommendations are transferrable across both on-
campus and on-Zoom classrooms. However, I propose that students experience
the benefits of these practices at a higher level in this virtual space.
#1 Create a Participative Environment
A fruitful academic discussion means hearing from everyone, or nearly everyone
in the class. In large classes, giving every student an opportunity to speak can be
difficult or downright impossible. But there are more ways to hear from
someone than just giving them the microphone. Polls tell you what everyone is
thinking, and breakout groups offer students to hear from everyone in their
group.
#2 Foster Group Stability
When given a choice between group variety and consistency of group
membership, students favor consistency. Maintaining group membership allows
students to develop a team culture, agreed-upon expectations, and it creates that
sense of trust and safety needed for more demanding academic discussions and
collaborations.
#3 Practice Directive Leadership
At the beginning of a movie, film directors use an establishing shot to help the
audience find their bearings. Typically, these are wide-angle shots that answer
the questions, "Where am I?" and "What is going on?" Our students need the
same kind of framing in the Zoom classroom. This direction and framing include
several elements, all of which we'll address in Parts 3 and 4 of the book:

Clear classroom protocols and expectations

Assertive communication skills
The skills set needed to facilitate groups
Structuring sessions and creating class rhythms
Providing preparatory exercises and discussion guides

#4 Be Curious
Students want a teacher who is both an expert and a fellow learner. They hope
that we will know a lot without being a know-it-all. More than the subject
matter, they want teachers who are curious about them and their learning
process. This means we create space for emergent questions, and we strike a
balance between pre-scripted elements and the freedom to go off-script. Students
say such classes feel more "organic," and teachers report a higher sense of
satisfaction when they feel grounded in a structure and remain open to
serendipity. Curiosity makes this possible.
#5 Tell Me Something New
Students who come prepared to class are ready for something new. The easiest
way to stifle this yearning is to rehash material they have read or viewed. While
this may seem an obvious thing to avoid, the rehash is a persistent practice to
which both novice and veteran teachers fall prey. How might we move our
students beyond information and into critical thinking? And into the realm of
original ideas? These are the types of questions we'll address in the upcoming
chapters on teaching and designing learning sessions.
#6 Develop Quality Prompts
The quality of our learning conversations depends on the quality of the questions
we ask. Students tell us they want to be challenged by questions and prompts
that press to consider new perspectives and ways of thinking.
#7 Make Course Materials Accessible
Our learners need access to the materials we use in class: presentations files,
articles, links, etc. We can provide these within a well-organized LMS course
site or send them via email prior to class. Alternatively, we can prepare a simple
text document so that we can quickly copy and paste links, questions, etc., into
the chat window.
#8 Design Meaningful Learning Tasks
Busywork is death to learning. We've all been subjected to it, and we've
probably all been guilty of creating it. Busywork is usually the result of a well-
intentioned learning activity gone awry, one that may only need a strategic
tweak and integration into the life of the course. Chapter 12: 30 Active Learning
Methods surveys a variety of methods we can use to involve our students in the
work of learning, and the downloadable bonus materials will provide you with
templates to support your learning goals.
With these learner-centered and learning-centered principles in mind, we now
move to the second major element in our recipe for success: our classroom
protocols. These guidelines have the power to eliminate distractions, create a
safe learning environment, and set a positive culture where teachers can invest
more time in learning and less time in classroom management.
10
 CLASSROOM PROTOCOLS

You don't win a game by hitting the ball out of the court.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Angel's Game

I NEED to start this chapter by saying that I’m not a big fan of proliferating
rules. At their worst, classroom policies can attempt to micromanage people and
avoid the hard relational work needed to build enduring relationships. On the
other hand, protocols, like those in this chapter, can help set expectations. To use
a sports analogy, they draw the lines for the game we are about to play,
establishing what’s out-of-bounds and the agreed-upon behavior for the learning
community.
Below, you’ll find a set of protocols to consider for your Zoom classroom. Some
of these will be more or less applicable based on your context, so I’ve provided a
downloadable and editable document on the Online Teaching with Zoom website
you can customize for your setting. 1 These protocols ask students to be self-
aware and to take responsibility for their learning environment and technology.
#1 Make sure you have a reliable Internet connection
The keyword here is reliable. Shared internet at your school or work is likely
robust, but a shared network at a cafe or coffee shop is not. If the person beside
you starts streaming a video, and the guy across the way is uploading a huge file,
then your bandwidth is going to take a nose-dive, and your video and audio
quality are going to suffer. Students starting a degree program may need to get
internet access installed in their home or plan other arrangements so they can
secure a dependable connection. I remember teaching a course, and during our
initial session, one of my students on shared apartment Wi-Fi had a technician in
her kitchen installing broadband. Hopefully, your school has already
communicated this requirement to distance students, but don’t assume students
have received the communication. Get this out to your learners early in your
syllabus and pre-course messaging.
#2 Secure a quiet place where you will not be interrupted.
While speaking with teachers of an online school district, one teacher noted that
her chief difficulty was where her students were studying. “I can see and hear
the mom in the kitchen behind him and the baby brother playing on the floor. It’s
nice to be allowed in on the realities of home. Still, it’s distracting—especially
for my student and the other students.” Attention and our ability to focus are at a
premium—and, most of the time, within our control. Help your students think
through where they will attend class. Though technologies like Zoom make it
possible to attend from anywhere, many places are just not going to work. Ask
your learners to avoid crowded coffee shops and public places. This may be
necessary when a student is traveling on business, but it should be the exception,
not the norm. The key feature for a good space is a door they can close. At the
same time, there is a reality here that we are teaching students in their space, and
we should expect that interruptions will happen, and we should have ways to
keep our class on track when they occur. However, most of these issues can be
prevented by students thinking through and applying this protocol.
#3 Test your equipment before the first class session

Provide students with the Zoom Test Room link and ask them to test their camera
and microphone before class. 2 Ideally, students would do this before every class
session and anytime they are trying to connect a new piece of hardware. They
should also know how to access the Zoom link for your specific course, so they
are not scrambling to find it and arriving late to class.
#4 Be on time.
Encourage students to come a few minutes early to class. If they encounter
technical issues, this provides the time margin to resolve them.
#5 Turn on your camera. We want to see you.
One of the drawbacks—and benefits—to the Zoom classroom is that students
can’t hide in the back of the room. Because we are all on camera, we are all in
the “front” of class. Some learners feel self-conscious about being on camera.
That’s understandable and should be noted as normal. A very few may have
serious challenges with this, perhaps requiring legitimate accommodations.
Overall, though, we want a level playing field, everyone showing up with their
video on.
#6 No attendance while operating a motor vehicle
If your students are old enough to drive, this is going to come up. Just because
it’s possible to drive and attend class doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. I
recommend that students never participate (even using audio-only mode) during
a videoconferenced class.
#7 Use a device that allows you to collaborate
If your class sessions require a lot of document sharing and access to digital
resources, think through whether or not smaller mobile devices will work for
your students. That small screen size limits what they can do and how well they
can see one another in breakout groups.
#8 Come to class prepared.
The most important factor for a successful classroom experience is that students
come prepared for the session. Think seriously about building this into your
course grading structure. However, the best accountability is to design
interactive learning that is highly dependent upon the prep, where faking it is
impossible. The positive social pressure of breakout group discussions is another
great reason to leverage them in your teaching.
#9 Use good lighting, framing, and a stable surface for your camera
As we mentioned in the Prepare Your Classroom chapter, we should instruct
students to place light sources in front and not behind them and to frame their
faces at eye level. Students should place laptops on a stable surface. I’ve seen
students in Zoom sessions lying down on couches or beds, so comfortable that
they were drifting off to sleep. I believe these situations are worth addressing in
your protocols because such settings both mitigate a student’s ability to focus
and can be distracting to others. Occasionally, students have medical reasons
why they may need to lay down or recline. However, most students should
expect to sit upright in a chair as they would in an on-campus classroom.
#10 You are a participant
Make this expectation explicit right from the beginning. In fact, I put this at the
very top of my protocols sheet. But remember, by doing so, you are also setting
the expectation that this will indeed be a highly interactive environment. I was
recently at a conference where several of the speakers started by saying, “I don’t
like to lecture, so I expect you all to participate.” Then they proceeded to speak
for the entire session. We’ll talk about this more in the chapters on facilitating
breakout groups. Still, the teaching takeaway is that interaction won’t just
happen by setting this expectation. You’re going to have to model this and put a
lot of energy into making this a truly participative environment.
#11 To mute or not to mute?
I have felt torn on this one, but eventually, I landed on a particular point of view:
I’m an un-muter. One of the top complaints from students in the Zoom
classroom is about ambient noise from unmuted microphones. This would
suggest the best protocol is for students to keep their microphones muted and to
unmute them when they desire to speak. However, some helpful research from
Dr. Phillip Olt, Professor at Fort Hays State University, shows that keeping
microphones muted has significant, unintended impacts on students. 3 It makes
them feel more distant from their peers and more likely to assume the role of
observer. Muting students is like having a screen door between you and them.
You can see them, but there is something in the way—and you both can feel it.
At the same time, when you have twenty students in a Zoom classroom, all with
unmuted microphones, the background noise can be a serious interruption.
So, what do we do? I think the best policy is a non-technical one. It’s self-
awareness. Establish a protocol for students to keep their microphones unmuted
so that they can jump into the conversation. At the same time, ask them to be
aware of any background noise or self-generated sound, and to mute their
microphones when this becomes a problem. Draw their attention to the
microphone symbol within their thumbnail and ask them to keep track of their
status. Managing the audio of 12 or 25 people should not be your job. (Well,
only in the more extreme occasions like we talked about in the chapter on
Technical Difficulties). There are really three elements to this protocol:
1. The self-awareness principle. Keep your mic on and mute when background
noise is unavoidable.
2. The prior mentioned quiet place protocol. If students secure a quiet place
where they can close the door, background noise should be rare.
3. Headsets and localizing microphones. Encourage students to use a good set
of earbuds, a headset, or a quality desktop microphone that has a localized
pickup pattern. This means the microphone has to be close to the sound source in
order to detect the sound.
A quick technical note: If a student does not use earbuds or a headset, and you
play a video over Share, that student will probably need to mute their
microphone during the video to prevent feedback. This is another great reason
for students to consider using earbuds or headsets instead of computer speakers.
It’s not a necessity, but it helps.
#12 Be aware and attentive to how you present yourself
A teacher walked up to me and said, “Online education never ceases to surprise
me!” I asked what had happened. “A guy in my class showed up without a
shirt!” I shook my head. “Really?” “Yep. It really threw the other students off,
making it hard to have a conversation.” I’ve found such circumstances and
individuals to be the exception. Still, it’s important to include in your protocols a
statement about dressing appropriately for the classroom environment. When we
go to a party, a formal banquet, out to work in the garden or on the car, we
match our attire for the event and tasks before us. We often do this with a mind
toward others, thinking through propriety. In the Zoom classroom, I’ve noticed
that we tend to default to the space we are in at home instead of the shared space
of the virtual meeting. For instance, during evening courses, students in
bedrooms tend to wear pajamas. PJs are appropriate for bedtime, but the “real
space” in this case, is the classroom. Where we sit and what we wear all
contribute to the mindset and focus we bring the learning experience.
Further, I ask students to be aware of their screens when sharing, to make sure
their desktop backgrounds do not distract their peers, are appropriate for the
classroom, and that they turn off notifications so that the sounds and messages
do not chime in or appear on the screen. Talk with them about having a self-
aware classroom, about the benefits of self-awareness, and how it will improve
everybody’s learning experience.
Bonus Protocol: Create a Silly Rule
I’ve been surprised by how students, both young and adult, will rally behind a
silly rule. A teacher I recently learned about has outlawed the word “Bieber”
from her classroom. Make a rule that “No ducks or representations of said
waterfowl shall be displayed in the classroom,” and your students will quickly
find a class mascot. This provides an outlet for our innate desire to break the
rules, and serves to build the identity of the classroom. There’s a danger in
giving our students a list of rules at the beginning of the term because it
generates the impression that we are control freaks. A silly rule can help to
override this conclusion.
Some Final Thoughts on Protocols
Keep your protocols to a one-sheet, just the front page, not front-and-back. Feel
free to cheat and put it in 11pt font. You can put this in a course syllabus as an
appendix. However, I recommend posting it as a stand-alone document on your
LMS course site or emailing it to students before the first meeting. One way to
reduce the size is to parse out the technical requirements from your protocols
and put them in a separate section.
Spend a few minutes during the first class meeting to review the protocols. For
any review, the key is to provide new information, especially the rationale for
your rules. Emphasize the learning community and your common goals. If you
are doing a single-session corporate training, a protocols sheet like this may feel
excessive. In that case, abbreviate it to the 3-5 most essential items and post
them as a bulleted list.
Finally, it’s important to note this set of protocols are class-level protocols.
We’ll have a separate set of protocols that focus on interpersonal and group
dynamics in the chapter on Group Etiquette.
11
 KEY INSTRUCTIONAL PRACTICES

Learn to adjust yourself to the conditions you have to endure, but

make a point of trying to alter or correct conditions so that they are
most favorable to you.”
— William Frederick

THE CORE IDEA of this book is that Zoom was built for interaction.
Videoconferencing technologies were invented to make group conversations
possible across great distances. Because they are interactive technologies,
anytime we use videoconferencing for a sustained period, and without student
interaction, we are working against the design of the tool. A second reality also
impacts our teaching: In virtual spaces, we lose the familiar structures of a
physical room. Because of this, the videoconferenced classroom can be
disorienting and feel awkward.
In the next chapters, we’ll explore practices and methods that:
1. Create opportunities for meaningful interaction (active learning)
2. Create structure in what can be a disorienting space
9 Practices to Guide Active Learning in the Zoom Classroom
#1 Agenda, Structure, and Rhythm
When a student steps into the classroom, their first question is, “What are we
doing today?” As learners, we need to feel oriented. Additionally, when we are
entering unfamiliar territory, our brains crave structure. Providing your students
with an agenda will give them the mental shelves on which to organize the new
ideas you’re about to present. My personal experience is that a majority of
meetings and classes lack this essential component. (You’ll find more guidance
for creating frameworks in the bonus material connected to this book:
Structuring Your Learning Sessions and in the three bonus chapters of learning
templates.) 1
After we establish the structure for our session, we can begin thinking about
course rhythm. Rhythm is applying that structure to multiple class sessions. For
example, we might create a rhythm of 10-15 minutes of lecture, followed by 10-
15 minutes of breakout room activities. You might be thinking, “Doesn’t that get
boring after a while, having the same structure?” It can. However, from
reviewing thousands of course evaluations, learners say they desire predictability
over variety. Our desire for stability and novelty is why musicians have
established predictable formats in music, such as concertos and the chorus-
refrain-bridge structure. While blues music is characterized by improvisation,
most blues songs share a rather small repertoire of chord progressions. We could
look to movies, novels, Broadway plays, and other art forms, and we would see
the same primacy of rhythm. Find one or two frameworks for your classroom
and stick to them. As students become familiar with these structures, they will
become more comfortable to participate. When you hit this point, you’ll
intuitively know when to improvise and introduce variety.
#2 Active Learning Segments
Active learning is the most crucial practice in this list, and perhaps the most
important practice in the entire book. Because we are conducting our class
within a videoconferencing technology, students arrive primed to talk, to engage,
to act. This makes extended instruction a challenge for the teacher and the
learner. The next chapter provides 30 active learning methods we can employ at
different points during our class sessions. Here, suffice it to say that our
instruction should be punctuated by meaningful learner-centered engagement.
#3 Side-By-Side View
Your students absolutely must learn to use the side-by-side view. Side by side
view is similar to picture-in-picture on your television. On the students’ end,
side-by-side view places your presentation (or other screen share) on the left side
of the screen, and you and their fellow students on the right. A light-grey vertical
line will appear in the middle of their screen. This line enables students to
enlarge and reduce the size of the shared presentation. The ability to control this
can be critical for those who have visual impairments and need to enlarge the
text, or for those hard of hearing who need to prioritize the speaker in order to
read their lips.
At the outset of your first presentation, coach your students on how to enable
side-by-side view. It’s important to know two things about this: First, because
you are the presenter, you will not see this option on your screen. Second, your
students will not be able to change their view options unless you are first sharing
something. After sharing a presentation or document, direct students to their
view options (at the top of their screen within a small green box). When they
click on it, a drop-down appears. Instruct them to select the side-by-side view
option within that drop-down. (Visit the webpage for this chapter for a demo of
side-by-side view.) 2
#4 Be Responsive
Our students learn as they, in real-time, have a chance to ask for clarifications,
for further explanations, and how an idea might apply in a different situation.
Good Zoom instruction is responsive. We are open to these “interruptions.” Like
jazz music, it’s an emergent work, transformed by our students’ questions. If you
have taught asynchronous online courses, you probably miss this sense of
serendipity. It’s possible again in the Zoom classroom, but there is one
technical reality that will make or break responsiveness: those mute settings
we touched on in the Classroom Protocols chapter.
Most sources encourage us to mute our attendees. I’m going to recommend the
opposite. If you want responsive, back-and-forth conversation during your class
session, then instruct your students to stay unmuted and encourage them to
jump in as ideas rise to the surface of their minds. At first, they will hesitate. The
hesitancy eventually shifts as you encourage students to participate and permit
them to interject their questions and musings. A fellow teacher puts it this way,
“I have had to shift to having my students keep their mics unmuted. I know
some profs want quiet, but there is so much more direct back-and-forth between
students when they are all unmuted and open to each other.” 3
#5 Higher Level of Energy (and Breaks) are Required
Teaching in this format is more demanding. When I talk with my colleagues
about what it’s like to teach with Zoom, they say, “Compared to my on-campus
classes, this requires me to bring a lot more energy to the classroom.”
Psychologist Curt Thompson reflects on this in his article, “A Body of Work”
Thompson notes that in-person communication requires less conscious cognitive
work to interpret and understand the non-verbals of tone and body language. 4
Thompson reflects that in videoconferences, “the conscious, cognitive domain of
my mind is having to do much, much more work than it is used to doing.” This
cognitive demand has several implications for our teaching. First, we need
breaks and movement.
Second, our students need breaks and opportunities to get up and move around.
Active learning segments not only support student learning, but they also offer
you short windows to rest and collect your thoughts. They give students a chance
to take a more active and participative role in their learning. Moreover, the
active learning segments provide educators with real-time evidence that our
students are learning, which in turn fuels our energy and motivation.
Because the Zoom classroom requires more energy, it stands to reason it requires
strategic breaks. Thompson explains that our bodies are made for movement.
Not only do we need a rhythm of breaks, but we also need to use those breaks to
move around. Encourage your students to take a short walk around the block
during breaks. As you think about your own teaching space, you’ll find it helpful
to shift between standing, sitting, and freeing yourself to move around within the
frame of your camera and the reach of your audio.
#6 Edit Your Instruction
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of transitioning to the Zoom classroom is that
it requires a slower pace. Consequently, we must adjust our expectations for how
much material we can work through during a given class session. We don’t have
to throw out our material wholesale, but we must edit. We’ve all been in classes
where our teacher was racing through information and right past our cognitive
capacity to keep up. Albert Einstein once said, “Everything should be made as
simple as possible, but not simpler.” Einstein’s words are a reliable maxim as we
review and edit our material before teaching.
 Learning is deeper and more durable when it’s effortful. Learning
that’s easy is like writing in sand, here today and gone tomorrow.”
― Peter C. Brown, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful
Learning

#7 Normalize Effortful Learning

Active learning is effortful. That’s a good thing because effort is correlated with
increased learning. 5 Effortful learning tends to be more durable learning.
Students often resist active learning because it feels more demanding. Some
students will complain, assuming that the teacher is shirking their job by making
the students do the work. A study published by the National Academy of the
Sciences explains, “Instructors report that students dislike being forced to
interact with one another, they resent the increase in responsibility for their own
learning, and they complain that “the blind can’t lead the blind.” 6 The authors
of the study go on to say, “More recent literature shows that if instructors
explain and facilitate active learning, student attitudes toward it can improve
over the course of a semester.” 7
First, we should expect this response from our students. Second, we can
normalize the effortful nature of real learning by appealing to other areas in life
where this is true: physical exercise, building relationships, or learning to play an
instrument. All of these, at times, require effort. It’s in those moments that we
grow, and because of that effort, we experience the most long-term benefit.
#8 Make Shared Documents Available on your Course Site via your LMS
Students regularly tell us they want to print off presentations and class notes so
that they can take their notes on the hardcopies. Others may download the file
and add notes as digital annotations. They want to work with the material.
Though it’s a low-tech interaction, it’s an important one for retrieval of learning
and aids students in their ability to stay attentive in class. I’ve encountered many
educators who believe providing their presentation files before class short-
circuits discovery in the learning process. There is some truth to this. However,
I’ve concluded that learners’ desire to take notes on these materials during class
outweighs the benefits of withholding them until the end of class.
Perhaps you are in a training environment and don’t have an LMS (Learning
Management System, such as Canvas, Moodle, or Blackboard). In this situation,
you can send the documents to your learners via email before your training
session. You can also share documents through Zoom’s Chat feature, by clicking
on more (in Chat) and use the share file option. 8 (This has to first be enabled in
your meeting settings).
Students usually need a more permanent way to access digital files, so I’d
recommend first using your LMS for document sharing, especially with course-
critical docs like study guides and rubrics. However, the Zoom document
sharing function allows us to send students just-in-time resources during class.
Chat is also a great way to send links to the books and websites you reference. I
find it helpful to delegate link sharing to a student who can look these up and
send them via chat to everyone during class. Delegating this to students helps
teachers keep focused on the work of teaching. Moreover, the fact is, I usually
forget to send them after class.
#9 Optimize your Audio
Mediocre audio is okay in a short presentation, but after about an hour, it
becomes irritating and an impediment. For the more technical information on
optimizing your audio, see Chapter 1: The Equipment. On the non-technical side
of things, keep a glass of water on your desk and have cough drops nearby if
your throat becomes irritated. Just be sure to avoid the smacks and teeth clacks
that can come with cough drops. Vocal quality is one of the most natural things
for a teacher to overlook simply because we don’t hear our own voices as they
are processed through our equipment. Because of this, ask your students to rate
the audio quality on a 1-10 scale and find ways to get it to an 8.
In the next chapter, we shift from practices to methods. It contains 30 active
learning methods organized by when they might best fit into your instructional
flow.
12
 30 ACTIVE LEARNING METHODS

The most valuable commodity of the 21st century will be undivided

attention.”
—Producer Phil Cooke, author of One Big Thing

ATTENTION DETERMINES OUR STUDENTS’ capacity to learn. We can

grab their attention with a hook, but it’s easy to lose their attention over the
course of an hour, and even more difficult to maintain during longer class
sessions. To make this even more challenging, in the Zoom classroom, we
compete with stimuli in our students’ homes and offices, the preoccupations of
their day, distracting email notifications, and the open browser tabs on their
computers. Without methods to recover and reset attention, their minds wander
and become disengaged. The most effective solution is to punctuate our
instruction with segments of active learning.
While active learning helps solve this attention problem, there is a better reason
to augment our teaching with these short activities: students comprehend and
retain more of what they learn when they are active participants. 1 What follows
are 30 active learning methods you can employ throughout your instruction. I’ve
arranged these to fit with the pivotal points of instructional flow: starting class,
middle of class, and concluding the class session.
Active Learning Strategies for Starting Class
A learning activity can jump-start class by immediately putting students into the
driver’s seat of their learning. It’s also a powerful way to get a sense of their
prior learning so that you can calibrate your instruction to the specific needs of
the class. Additionally, active learning, using specific methods, such as In the
News or the Sticky Scenario, can be effective ways to establish the relevance of
the subject matter.
#1 Polls
Because the polling tool is built into Zoom, it is relatively easy to set up and
employ. Use polls to test comprehension by opening class with a quick, 3 to 5-
question, ungraded quiz. Design these quizzes to assess whether or not students
grasp the main concepts in the required reading or other preassigned material.
Another approach is to create a short scenario and require students to choose
from a multiple-choice list of possible solutions.
#2 Bring Questions
Ask your students to prepare for class by bringing a question that emerged from
their reading or perhaps from work on a major paper or project. Invite your
students to interject questions when they are most pertinent to the current
material. This method is best used throughout the class period but can be a great
way to start class. It gets the session underway with an inquiry mindset instead
of an information mindset.
Quick Tip: You’ll notice Zoom has a raise-hand feature in the participants
panel. While a great idea, I find this impossible to monitor. Reactions, like the
thumbs up and applause emojis, overlay the video and are more noticeable.
However, you have to first define how to use them as there is not yet a raised
hand emoji. In the previous chapter, I advocated for an interruptible classroom
culture where students are free to interject. However, depending on the age and
maturity of your students, that may not be possible. In that case, substituting the
applause reaction emoji to symbolize a raised hand is probably the most
effective option.
#3 In the News
Prior to class, your students search the news using keywords related to the class
topic. Begin the class by asking a few students to screen share an article, provide
a summary, and explain its connection to the material. Alternatively, place
students in small groups and have them share their findings. Visit some of the
groups so that you are aware of the articles and make reference to them during
your instruction.
#4 Define Success
Provide your students with an outline for the class session, put them in breakout
groups, and ask them to discuss, “What would make today’s class a success for
you?” Or make this an individual reflection with the following instructions,
“Take 2-3 minutes to review the outline and get a sense of what we’ll address
today. Then write out a personal learning goal.” Defining the goal helps students
to personalize and take ownership of their role in the learning process.
#5 Comprehension Test
Comprehension tests are similar to polling but graded. One of my graduate
school professors used this method for every class. He began class with a 12-15
question quiz on the core concepts of our assigned reading. When complete, we
would review the questions and correct answers. During the review, he opened
the floor for clarifying questions, and he would lecture only on the material that
needed further explanation, ideas we wanted to explore, or theories we didn’t yet
understand. While Zoom polls can record individual answers, it’s a lot of work
to get poll results out of Zoom and into your LMS for grading. Instead, I
recommend you use the quiz module built into your LMS. These quiz modules
have more robust question features, review options, and the grades will go
directly into your online gradebook.
#6 Prior Knowledge Survey
Prior knowledge surveys differ from polls because they require students to write
or type short essay-type responses. The most straightforward method is to give
students 2-3 minutes to write out everything they already know about a topic.
You can stop there, or ask them to elaborate, going beyond the reading to make
connections with their life experience, other classes, documentaries they have
watched—anything is fair game. A third phase is to underline or circle what they
believe is most relevant, thematic, or important. After writing, either put students
in breakout groups to share what they’ve circled and underlined or ask a few
individuals to share with the entire class.

The more you can explain about the way your new learning relates
to your prior knowledge, the stronger your grasp of the new learning
will be, and the more connections you create that will help you
remember it later.”
― Peter C. Brown, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful
Learning
#7 What’s on Your Mind?
The What’s on Your Mind? exercise is helpful when the entire class is
experiencing something of cultural, personal, or institutional importance that
would otherwise distract them. This activity integrates the elephant in the room
into the substance of the class session. Start with triad breakout groups and ask
students to share what’s top-of-mind for them as they begin class. The question
is simple but powerful: “What’s on your mind?” Sometimes this is better done in
a large-group setting, but the drawback is that you only have time for a handful
of students to share.
At the time of this writing, we are experiencing the COVID-19 pandemic. An
instructor I work with noted that his students were experiencing a high level of
anxiety. In response, he started class with a similar exercise and discovered that
many of them were worried about completing their internships—a requirement
for graduation. While this may have taken away valuable instructional time, it
helped to reframe his instruction and to support students in ways that extended
beyond the classroom and further their professional development.
#8 Learning Journals and Journal Reviews
Journals provide students an active outlet while listening to their teacher’s
instruction and a place to record their thoughts. One of the other benefits of
journal-during-lecture is that it gives more restless students something to do.
One of my friends is a brilliant high school English teacher. He can’t sit still in a
teacher meeting to save his life, so he doodles. It helps him to listen and pay
attention.
The key to making journals like this work is to provide a set of sample prompts.

Note things that most interest you

Jot down questions—even if they feel unrelated
Doodle concept maps, create lists or illustrate ideas
Just take notes

If you make this a regular practice in your classroom, you can use journals as a
reference point for most other learning activities. An especially effective way to
use journals is to begin class by asking students to review their journal entries
from the previous class session. Then place students in breakouts to make this a
short social learning time. If you want to spend a bit more time here, ask
students to make connections between their journal entries and the specific
material to be addressed in the current class session. This task will help them
connect prior knowledge with the new content.
#9 Sticky Scenario
The Sticky Scenario is my favorite activity on this list. The only drawback is that
it takes more time and effort to develop. Begin class with a scenario. Embed in
the scenario two to three core concepts you plan to address in your instruction. A
scenario differs from a case study in that scenarios are usually imagined and
contain less detail. Cases typically draw from real-life circumstances. Like a
case, the scenario has to be sticky, complicated enough that students cannot
default to easy answers. These are often ethical questions and complex problems
that require students to stretch into higher-order thinking skills.
In breakout groups, give students several minutes to discuss the scenario, to
surface questions, and talk about how they might approach a solution. The goal
here is not to solve the problem as much as it is to understand what’s going on.
After small group breakouts, return to the large-group setting. Begin your large-
group time by allowing students to ask clarifying questions about the scenario.
During the teaching segments, use the scenario as an anchor point, referring to it
often, allowing it to unfold, and making connections between the scenario and
your content.
Quick Tip: You can employ a majority of these methods as either individual or
group activities. Group activities take more time. So, if you feel pressed for time,
consider retaining a learning activity, but recasting it as an individual exercise.
Active Learning Strategies for the Middle of Class
Some of the following methods can be used as informal checks to get a quick
appraisal of whether or not your learners are comprehending the core concepts of
your instruction. Others offer your students opportunities to reinforce their
learning through such actions as summarizing, illustrating, elaborating, or
sharing. Additionally, many of these activities encourage students to enter short
periods of inquiry and to ask clarifying questions.
#10 Backchannel Chat
During a lesson, direct students to use Zoom’s chat panel to ask questions and
communicate their ponderings. You’ll need to first establish protocols for this
form of communication; the most important is to keep contributions on-topic.
The key to making backchannel chat successful is to review it at regular
intervals and to use it as a jumping-off point for short stints of large-group
discussion. Reviewing the chat takes time, so while you look over it, give your
students a 2-3-minute journal prompt. If you have longer class times, review the
questions during breaks, and address the questions when the class resumes.
#11 Peer Instruction (an abbreviated version)
Harvard physicist and professor Eric Mazur and his colleagues developed this
active learning strategy. Mazur discovered his students were leaving semester-
long physics classes with the same misconceptions they had before taking the
course. He found that student-to-student discussion had the power to shift this.
Why? Because students could discuss and convey complex ideas in language
their peers could understand. Essentially, peer instruction helps eliminate our
expert blind spots. In an article in Harvard Magazine, Mazur explains that
“Peer-instructed students who’ve actively argued for and explained their
understanding of scientific concepts hold onto their knowledge longer.” 2
What follows is an abridged approach to this method. (Download the Online
Teaching with Zoom bonus material to review a full Peer Instruction teaching
template.) 3
Start with a brief teaching segment. Then launch a one-question poll that tests a
key concept from your teaching. Next, put students into breakout groups of two
to three to discuss their answers for 3-5 minutes, where they explain to one
another the thinking that led to their choice. Poll the students again to see how
their responses may have changed. Reveal the polls and discuss the results, then
move on to the next brief lecture.
Tips for abridged Peer Instruction:

Integrate versions of the peer instruction questions into your exams or

other assessments. This will create accountability for learning and boost
student motivation to study.

Peer Instruction is most effective when students come to class after

completing the assigned reading or other required course materials.
#12 Muddiest Point
Activities #12 through #15 are informal checks. You can use these as
springboards for brief large-group or small group breakout discussions. We start
with the Muddiest Point activity because it’s a classic, go-to method. The idea is
simple: after an instructional segment, ask students to share what is unclear or
confusing. But a critical point is often missed: reflection. Provide your students
1-2 minutes to consider the question. You can leverage journals by asking
students to record these in their notes or to devote a section in their journal as an
ongoing list of muddiest points. Muddiest points are valuable because they
expose student learning gaps, providing you insights into what ideas you may
need to revisit before moving on to more complicated or new content.
#13 Red Light, Green Light, Yellow Light
One of my colleagues uses an informal checks system that goes beyond the
muddiest point. His system uses red light for ideas or perspectives students
disagree with or dislike, green light for things they agree with or like, and yellow
light for muddiest points. These can be journaled or shared in large-group
discussions and smaller breakouts.
#14 Thumbs Up, Thumbs Down, Thumbs Sideways
I think of this as the speed method of informal checks. The thumbs method gives
you an instant visual response from your students (if they all fit on the screen).
The key is to define what the thumb positions mean: are they an agree/disagree
continuum? Or are they a clarity/muddy continuum? The strength of this visual
method is that you can ask a specific student about their response. For example,
“Claire, you had a thumb-sideways. Would you be willing to explain why?”
Because this activity is so visual, screen size will limit your ability to see the
student responses. If you have more students than can fit on one screen, you may
want to employ the next method.
#15 Polls for Informal Checks
You can use polls to gather and visualize informal checks. This can be as simple
as a poll question with agree/disagree/neutral options or red/green/yellow light
options. The benefit is that you can share the poll with your students and move
the conversation according to their responses. For example, “Wow, 74% of you
disagreed with the author’s assertion that…Let’s take a few minutes to explore
why.” This method is especially helpful in large settings like webinars or classes
with over 50 students.
#16 Think-Pair-Share
Like Muddiest Point, Think-Pair-Share is a quintessential active learning
method. I think of it as a meta-method because we can adapt its overall structure
to a thousand different purposes. The key practice (too often skipped) is to allow
your students a minute to reflect on a question or their notes. After the think
time, pair students into breakouts to share their thoughts. Keep these brief, to
about 2-3 minutes. If you want to maintain the same groups throughout the class
meeting, you’ll need to manually assign students to breakout groups.
#17 Journals
We’ve already explained journals in #8. In the middle of your instruction, you
can pause students to reflect and write, ask what has come up in their entries,
Think-Pair-Share their entries, or post something to the chat from their journals
that they find relevant or important.
#18 Short Writes
The short write is sometimes called the One-Minute Paper. Students write a
speed-essay, summary, or elaboration on the lesson they have just heard. Short
writes can focus on such things as:

Applications
Explanations
Reasons: 2-3 reasons why…
Implications: If this is true, then…
Elaborations
Connections: “How does_____relate to_____?”
#19 Illustrate
Sometimes it helps to break free from the analytical tendencies of note-taking
and journaling to draw out and illustrate ideas. Instead of a One-Minute Paper,
have students sketch out their thoughts. Students can sketch these out on a piece
of paper or use the Zoom whiteboard in breakout groups. Share the drawings in
large or small groups and discuss the different ways students visualize and
portray their thinking.
#20 Short Team Tasks
Send students into breakouts to complete a short task. The key is to keep the task
achievable within the set timeframe. Keep it short, 3-5 minutes. Here are a few
task ideas:

Create an outline based on their notes

Create a summary slide
Draft a speed concept map
Make a meme with a meme generator
Assess a scenario and come to a decision.

Back in the large-group setting, have a representative share the product with the
entire class.
#21 Phase Solutions
Phase solutions take longer because they involve 1) a small amount of
deliberation, followed by 2) analysis. In breakout groups of 3-5 learners,
students work through a brief case study, problem, or scenario. After coming to
their decision, they outline their decision-making process. It’s important to
emphasize they are not outlining the reasons why they made their decision, but
the phases of their process toward the solution. Phase solutions are helpful
exercises for STEM courses, advanced math story problems, and business case
studies.
#22 Abridged Jigsaw
The Jigsaw Method is more than a teaching tactic. Educators developed the
model in the 1970s as a way to integrate racially diverse and previously
segregated classrooms. 4 The complete Jigsaw method is explained in more detail
in the teaching templates segment of this book’s free bonus material. Here we’ll
use an abridged form because it’s better suited for shorter segments of active
learning.
Before or after an instructional unit (more than 15 minutes), create expert groups
of 3-5 students, assigning each group a different aspect or perspective of the
overall topic you’ve addressed or will address in your lesson. For example, let’s
say we are teaching on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs in an Organizational
Psychology course. Give each expert group a different segment of the hierarchy:
physiological, safety, belonging and love, esteem, and self-actualization.
Next, give each group a question prompt they can discuss within a 10-minute
timeframe. The final phase is to bring the large-group back together and have a
representative from each group present a synopsis of their discussion. These
succeed when the question prompts challenge students to work through
implications, applications, or a short case. The unique feature of this method is
that it provides each group an opportunity to do a brief but deep dive on one
topic or perspective. The large-groups provide time to synthesize those diverse
and sometimes differing points of view.
#23 Large-Group Discussion
In this book, I’m defining large-groups as groups that include the entire class or
any group containing more than 12 learners. Large-group discussions have built-
in limitations of time and communication dynamics. They gravitate toward a
hub-and-spoke model of interaction. The dialogue is predominantly between the
teachers and a handful of individuals, with limited student-to-student interaction.
In large-group discussions, the teacher is the hub of the conversation, so we
experience more dynamism than our students. The hub-and-spoke dynamic can
create an illusion of engagement. Because a majority of students may experience
large-group discussions as observers, it may not be active learning. The next
chapter, Facilitating Active Learning, includes some guidance for facilitating
this type of large-group conversation.
Active Learning Strategies for Concluding Class
The concluding minutes of class may be the most important in our instruction
because of our brain’s need to consolidate what we have learned. These last
seven methods can help students integrate prior learning with new learning,
create connections to future learning, and move students toward high-order
thinking.
#24 Summaries and Takeaways
Writing summaries may appear a rudimentary task, but this very basic strategy
helps students synthesize and comprehend new material. Takeaways differ from
summaries because they are less about the information and more about the
impact of the subject matter on the learner. Takeaways are explanations of those
ah-ha or lightbulb moments.
#25 Concept Mapping
At the end of class, have students work alone with a piece of paper, or in groups
with the Zoom whiteboard, to create a concept map of the lesson material. The
second phase of this activity involves drawing lines between elements on the
map to indicate connections. In a third phase, students define those connections
by writing or typing along their connecting lines. During the fourth phase,
students reflect on themes or new understandings that became apparent during
the activity. We can abridge the Concept Mapping activity by using just the
initial stage or stages of the process.
#26 Post Test
Whether graded or ungraded, post-tests add a sense of accountability for
learning. Because such a high number of students experience test anxiety, I
prefer to make these ungraded or very low-stakes assessments—especially if
used often. Anonymous polls are a great way to implement post-tests.
#27 Create Test Questions
Test Questions is a more collaborative form of the Post Test. Similar to the
Abridged Jigsaw, assign a sub-topic to each group and require them to create a
slide with one or two post-test questions. Groups should create these slides in a
program outside of Zoom, such as PowerPoint or Google slides. When they
return to the large-group, each breakout group shares their slides and questions
via the Share function.
#28 Forecasting
Forecasting is the inverse of prior learning and is particularly helpful in classes
where students have significant amounts of reading that might take them beyond
the topic of the current class meeting. In a short write or short breakout
discussion, students work through prompts, similar to the following examples:

How does _______ relate to next week’s or tomorrow’s material?

Next week we move into _______. How is what you’ve learned today
foundational for that next topic?
This week we’ve been talking about ________. Next week we’ll
examine a couple of case studies about ______. What from today will
help you work through those case studies?
#29 Error Identification
Think of this as a sophisticated Where’s Waldo? activity. Provide your students
with brief examples or scenarios where something doesn’t fit, doesn’t work, or
went wrong. Then ask them to identify the mistake or error. Error Identification
tests comprehension and can require students to use higher-order thinking skills
to complete. This method is especially helpful for students in professional
programs learning processes, such as nurses practicing patient surveillance or
counselors practicing a referral process.
#30 Application or Analysis Scenario
As you conclude class, assemble students into breakouts to work through
scenarios where they must apply their new learning to a scenario or analyze a
short case. These move students into higher-order thinking and can serve as
informal assessments.
The key to making an Application Scenario successful is to use how questions.

How would you fix this?

How would you set up the experiment?
How could we use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to inform how we
implement this policy?

An Analysis Scenario requires students to identify parts of the scenario and

differentiate root causes from consequences. Here are a few ideas for setting up a
successful Analysis Scenario.

Provide students an outline of an argument.

Give students a link to a short reading, video, or other examples to
analyze.
Use two contrasting examples or scenarios and ask students to identify
the differences.
Provide two solutions to the same problem, then have students identify
the differences in both the approach and possible consequences.
Provide a problem. Ask students to identify the root causes and the
resulting consequences.

With these 30 tools in your active learning toolbox, it’s time to shift again from
method to practice. In Chapter 13, we’ll focus on how to facilitate these types of
active learning sessions in the Zoom classroom.
13
 FACILITATING ACTIVE LEARNING

All genuine learning is active, not passive."

— Mortimer Adler, Founder of the Great Books Program

IT'S CHALLENGING to facilitate active learning. Time is of the essence, and

we feel a great deal of pressure to make progress through our material. So, we
want these alternating segments of student interaction to be concise and
effective. The ten practices in this chapter will help us make the most of our
limited time so that we can create a more vibrant and engaging classroom
experience.
10 Practices for Facilitating Active Learning in Zoom
#1 Be Strategic with Activity Types
Because short learning activities are so adaptable and easy to employ, it's natural
to use them in an ad hoc fashion, without thinking through their educational
purposes. In this approach, we typically have four modes of instruction, each
with their own set of strengths and limitations.

Lecture
Individual activity
Small-group activity
Large-group activity

The key practice is to align activities with our goals and time limits. It's
easier to manage the clock with direct instruction and individual activities.
Because of this, when speed is more critical than processing, these will be our
go-to methods. Large-group and small-group activities require more time and
facility to guide conversation, but they provide students with opportunities to
metabolize complex ideas. Moreover, small-group breakouts create spaces for
more students to talk. By contrast, while large-group discussions limit the
conversation to a few individuals, they also encourage students to synthesize the
work of small-groups. Large-groups are useful for conducting informal checks
and making clarifications before proceeding to new material. While small-group
activities require more planning, large-group activities probably require more in-
the-moment leadership from the teacher to direct the flow of conversation.
#2 Leverage Breakout Groups
As we've seen, active learning can be done by individuals in short writes,
journals, informal checks, polls, etc. However, active learning in a small group
allows students to hear from peers of different ages, gender, and cultures. The
variety of backgrounds and life experiences enrich the discourse. Perhaps most
important, our quiet students, who tend to feel more nervous about speaking up
in large-groups, find smaller breakouts a safe place to share and converse.
Give breakouts a time limit, clear instructions, and a single question or short
task. Even with short scenarios or cases, the instructions should be concise,
asking only one question or requiring a single decision. However, there are
occasions where you may want your learners to work through a series of short
questions. For this, I recommend the following process: 1) ask a single question,
2) return to the large-group to debrief, 3) send students back into breakout
groups with a second question, 4) repeat.

…brevity is the byproduct of vigor."

- William Strunk and E.B. White

#3 The Succinct Expectation

Both large-group discussions and small-group activities require teachers and
students to be concise with their speech. This requirement can create anxiety for
some students, especially those who are verbal processors. It helps to emphasize
that we are all figuring this out together. (Most teachers are not exactly succinct
people; we like talking—and writing long parentheticals in our books.) For adult
learners, it helps to explain how speaking is a vital professional skill. Those who
learn to speak with clarity grow their influence within organizations and teams.
It also helps to demonstrate just how much can be said in a few seconds. Read
aloud to your class the first half of the Gettysburg Address, and note that it takes
only 30 seconds. The entire thing takes just over one minute. We can say a lot in
a short period. The harder part is forming our thoughts before we speak them.
That brings us to our next practice, Pause to reflect.
#4 Pause to Reflect
Unless we need immediate, visceral responses, we can create space for our
students to reflect before speaking. Most of the time, this only requires a 30 to
60-second pause, but almost every active learning segment needs this supporting
work of pondering. Ask students to reflect for a while before responding to a
poll. Pause small-groups to stew on a question for a minute before talking.
Initially, silence can be uncomfortable, but that quickly changes when we make
these quiet spaces a regular practice in our classroom.

From the quiet reflection will come even more effective action.” —
Peter Drucker

#5 Model Thinking and Discourse

Like pausing to reflect, we support student learning by slowing down to make
our thinking explicit. When a teacher says, "John, what you just said connects
in an important way to what Amber was explaining," the teacher is verbally
connecting ideas. Think of this as narrating the conversation and bringing
meaning to the discourse. In large-group debriefs, we have the opportunity to
integrate the potpourri of thoughts coming into the discussion from individuals
and small groups. Whiteboarding takes this narration a step further by creating a
visual account of our thoughts. How we respond and talk, how we take the time
to summarize what a student struggled to explain, models kindness and respect,
and goes a long way in building the classroom culture we desire.
#6 Be Assertive
The videoconference classroom can feel like a busy intersection where the
stoplights have gone out. Our students need us to step out into the busy street to
direct the traffic. Because most of us want to be accommodating and considerate,
a more directive leadership style can feel overbearing and autocratic. However,
we can be assertive and polite at the same time.
A colleague of mine explains this well: "I encourage my students to speak up,
interrupt me at times, and I want to make sure everyone is willing and motivated
to have their voice heard. If this doesn't occur, then the class becomes a jumble
of students unmuting, saying something, me replying, student muting again, and
everyone staring at each other, waiting for someone to unmute and say
something."
If you read into the next segment on discussion-based and collaborative learning,
we'll explore the reasons for why the stoplights feel broken and the specific
skills of pacing and interrupting that help direct the conversational traffic.
#7 Use Student Names
The most valued word to any human being is their name. During my first year of
teaching, a master teacher advised me to learn the names of all 83 of my
sophomore students. I grabbed a yearbook, copied the pages, and made
flashcards. I'll never forget the looks on their faces when students walked
through the door, and I greeted them by name. Not only did it make a powerful
first impression, but it also communicated that I valued them and had a desire to
know them. Zoom puts student names right on the screen below their video. It's a
cheat sheet in every session, making it easy to call on students by name. This
practice may be the best way to employ the be assertive principle. Instead of
saying, "Does anyone want to share?" and wait through the awkward pause and
fears of talking over one another, say, "Diane, would you be willing to share
your thoughts on this?" When you see a student drifting or disengaged, use their
name in an example. "So, if Lindsey were seeing a client like this, what might
she do to help in this situation?" It prevents calling them out directly but
immediately reengages them when they hear their name.
#8 Communication Expectations
Let's go back to the broken stoplight metaphor. At an intersection, even when the
stoplight malfunctions, there are expectations for who goes next. We save
energy directing traffic by setting some expectations around how to
communicate. These will be different depending on your context, and some will
change depending on the type of discussion. However, here are a few examples:

If you were the first to speak in the previous discussion, allow someone
else to speak first in the next discussion.
For those of you who are more reserved, I want you to speak up, but I
know you prefer to have some time to think about the question. I will
call on you, but I will also try to do so after giving you some time to
think over the question.
You are always free to pass when I call on you.

#9 Commit to Sharpening Your Large-group Skills

The most demanding context for active learning is the large-group setting. In
large-groups, we experience rapid-fire interactions. We endeavor to encourage
freedom in the conversation while guiding talk in a meaningful direction.
Facilitating large-group discussion is a demanding task and requires a skill set
that includes: rephrasing, summarizing, gently interrupting, connecting ideas,
thanking and appreciating, using names, giving space to think, pacing the
conversation, concluding, and transitioning. These are all skills we can sharpen.
Two approaches can aid us in this effort. The first is to pick a single skill that we
desire to improve in each Zoom session and to be attentive to it. Simply noticing
is usually enough to catch our attention and make focused improvements. In
short, this need not be a significant undertaking. But there are some habits we
cannot improve because they are in our teaching blindspot. We all can recall the
annoying habits of our high school teachers, the quirks no one told them about,
but everyone would imitate. Coffee breath is, thankfully, not an issue on Zoom,
but we have less-glaring mannerisms and habits that will not change without
feedback. Be brave and ask students to give you feedback on how you can
improve. We'll look more into how to do this in Chapter 20: Improving Our
Game.
#10 Acknowledge the Limits of Conversation
Let your students know that most large-group will be teacher-to-individual
student, a hub-and-spokes format of communication. Breakout groups will be the
exception, but the time in small-groups goes by quickly. Often, the conversation
will feel like it's just getting started, then is cut short by the need to move on to
the next topic. This limitation is important to forecast because some students can
become frustrated by these brief opportunities to talk. However, if we first
communicate our expectations and the limits of our teaching methods, our
students will adjust and learn to function within the time frames and purpose of
these groups.
However, there are times when our students stretch the limits of our teaching
methods to the point where our go-to methods no longer fit. The next chapter
will help us diagnose when it's time to consider new methods and perhaps
different paradigms for teaching and learning.
 INTERLUDE: ADAPTING

Because Zoom requires us to adjust our teaching habits and adapt our material,
we can feel stretched and begin to encounter the limits of our go-to pedagogies.
Sometimes other factors outside our control force us to reconsider our methods.
This happened to me when an online course I taught doubled in enrollment. I
had built my teaching around teaching a class of 20 students. Now, I had 40
students in one online course.
First, I did what every responsible and caring teacher would do: I freaked out.
After regaining composure, I realized I needed to reconsider what had become
my normal mode of teaching. Reading up on group-based collaborative learning
methods, I employed a project-based learning model (PBL) and divided my
students into ten working groups. This required shifts in how I thought about
learning and my role as the teacher. It also required changes in how I structured
and prepared for class, a shift from supporting individuals to supporting teams.
And it changed how I would assess student work. Though it was demanding and
stretching, it was probably the most significant moment in my teaching career. In
this new format, my students surpassed my expectations. This was not an AP
course, but in several cases, these high school seniors were doing college-level
work. This paradigm shift didn’t mean I had to throw out my former practices.
Instead, it added new tools to my teaching toolbox.
I believe that videoconferenced learning is impacting many educators in
similar ways, stretching our usual practices and prodding us to consider
different approaches. The next segment, Part 4: Working with Breakout Groups,
takes this into account. You can read it in two different ways: 1) to pick up some
practices that will help you teach using breakout groups, or 2) to learn about and
try out a more group-based model of teaching and learning. You have choices.
As a colleague recently explained, “I need a now-and-later resource, something
that will support me now as I face this shift to teaching live online, and a
reference I can consider later when I have more time.” At the same time, if you
already teach using more collaborative or group-based methods, you’ll find Part
4 helpful for adapting your work to the Zoom environment.
The next eight chapters unpack and help us with the second key idea of the
book: Breakout groups are the most important and powerful educational
tool in our Zoom toolbox. But group work doesn’t work out-of-the-box. The
next chapters help us take a more strategic approach to extended teaching and
learning with breakouts. We’ll explore what it takes to set up successful learning
teams, use etiquette commitments to set expectations, guide their learning with
Zoom Preps and discussion guides, and facilitate group learning through the
practices of leading, asking, and attending.
14
 ESTABLISHING GROUPS

Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is

to overcome our need for invulnerability."
— Patrick Lencioni

EARLIER, we reviewed the technical ins and outs of using breakout rooms in
Zoom. Now, we move beyond the technical aspects to learn how to set up
breakouts for learning. It starts with creating a safe environment for critical
thinking. From elementary through graduate settings, I witness educators run
right past this important process, regarding team building as a peripheral or
perhaps extra-curricular task. I made this mistake for many years because I was
operating by an inaccurate notion: I understood critical thinking primarily as an
analytical task. However, learning is just as much an emotional process as it is a
left-brain activity. Critical thinking requires us to become vulnerable enough
with a group of peers that we become willing to question our long-held
assumptions. Because of this, we cannot take an ad hoc approach to set up
breakout groups. Learning groups intended to go beyond short, exploratory
activities, will take time and intention to establish. It's a lot like building a good
fire.
Building a good fire requires tinder and kindling, spacing the paper and wood so
that the oxygen can breathe the fire to life. Similarly, our breakouts require a
deliberate 3-step process. We start by establishing safety. Second, we invest time
and energy building group cohesion. Third, we help our students develop the
skills needed for meaningful discussions and collaborative work.
#1 Establish Safety
Before we get into how to build safety, let's look closer at what it looks like in a
small-group setting.

Safe groups are democratic. No one member dominates the

conversation. In a safe group, I'm confident others will listen to one
another. In unsafe groups, I'm unsure whether or not my thoughts
matter.
Safe groups have a clearly defined purpose. Unsafe groups feel aimless
because expectations are unclear.
In safe groups, those aspects of myself that make me unique are valued
and respected. My ethnic background, gender, previous education, work
experience, etc. are seen as advantages to the group. Because of this, my
peers are curious to hear my perspective. In unsafe groups, learners
overvalue their personal views and fail to appreciate one another.
In a safe group, I know my instructor will direct the learning without
controlling it. And I know that she is willing to intervene if we develop
a pattern of going off-track or if our group dynamics deteriorate. In
unsafe groups, my instructor is passive.

So, how do we go about building safety? It's tricky because, in the end, each
group member must choose to trust their peers. Our job as educators is to create
opportunities and to guide the process toward it.

If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."

—African Proverb

We build safety by providing low-stakes opportunities for our breakout learning

teams to get to know one another and take incremental steps of vulnerability.
These activities must occur early in the life of the group. Our biggest challenge
is that these conversations take time and will likely require us to revise our
instructional goals, especially during the first several class meetings. However,
it’s not an all-or-nothing prospect. The best safety-building activities challenge
students to integrate the major themes of the course with their personal
experiences. I’ve compiled a set of 8 Group Activities for Building Safety and
Trust that you can download from the Online Teaching with Zoom webpage for
this chapter. 1
#2 Build Cohesion

When a learning group develops cohesion, they function more like a team. 2
Teams differ from groups in that they are clear on their purpose. Cohesive
learning teams develop a culture with a shared understanding of what is okay
and not okay behavior. With a clear purpose and culture, breakout groups
acquire a sense of identity that empowers them to move into deeper learning.
The first ingredient for cohesion is consistency, staying in the same group, and
working with the same people. This is why I recommend maintaining group
membership for longer terms: for the entire semester, the quarter, or a whole 2-
day workshop. Going deep into critical thinking requires what author Kim Scott
calls radical candor: the ability to care personally and challenge directly. 3 This
kind of relationship can only grow when learners meet for frequent and sustained
sessions.
To build cohesion, leverage the language of “teams.” The term breakouts is
technically accurate and helpful because it describes what they are: breakouts
from the main session. However, by referring to our breakout groups as “teams,”
we move from descriptive language to identity language. Being a team means
that we have a shared purpose and goal. Our investment goes beyond personal
performance because we want the team to win and achieve its collective goal. To
make building cohesion more concrete, I’ve created a resource, 3 Activities for
Building Group Cohesion, that you can download from the Online Teaching with
Zoom webpage for this chapter.
#3 Develop Group Discussion Skills
Much of our news reporting, political exchange, and social media posting model
an unwillingness to listen to others and an entrenched entitlement to our
opinions. This can make group discussion a daunting project for educators. Yet,
it is also an incredible opportunity to help a generation relearn how to go about
constructive dialogue. I'm a firm believer that teachers have a more indelible
impact than Instagram influencers and YouTube stars. Recently, my 6 th Grade
teacher, Mrs. Jones, passed away. She was an expert at matching the right book
to the right kid, and from her, I caught my love of reading. It's helpful to recall
our impact when we feel like we are spending an inordinate amount of time
teaching how to have a good conversation. We are helping our students build
skills that will impact all of their relationships for the rest of their lives.
These include the practices of active listening, expressing appreciation, and
inquiry.
I’ve developed an activity called The Negotiation Exercise that serves as a skill-
building opportunity, and you can access it on the companion webpage to this
chapter. However, the best way to help students develop these skills is to assign
one skill-development focus or protocol for each activity. To learn the skills of
active listening, we can require breakout teams to use a protocol like The Three
Person Rule: When commenting on another's contribution, each student waits
until three group members have spoken before interjecting their response. 4 We
might require students to use something similar to Walt Disney’s Plus-It
protocol: After each person’s initial contribution, comments must add to and
build upon the thoughts of others.
What to Do When a Group Becomes Unsafe?
When safety breaks down, it's usually due to an individual in the group who
lacks self-awareness or is just unwilling to change their behavior. I'll admit,
when teaching high school, my initial response was to change up the groups,
moving the "problem child" to a new team. But groups can build cohesion by
successfully navigating conflict. It just takes an instructor who is willing to
intervene and help them work it out. Students need the assurance that we'll be
their safety net, available to intervene when they have tried to work things out
but arrive at an impasse. As to how to work through group problems—well,
that's beyond the scope of this book. Two books that I highly recommend are
Never Split the Difference, by FBI hostage negotiator, Chris Voss, and Crucial
Accountability by the team over at Vital Smarts. The bottom line is that when we
invest early in building group safety, cohesion, and basic discussion skills, we
are far less likely to encounter challenging interpersonal issues. Instead of
conflict, we establish teams that can learn more together than they could alone.
15
 GROUP ETIQUETTE

I'm not shy about heated debate or passionate discourse, but when
people get crazy or rude, that's a buzz kill. There's got to be a better
code of conduct, some basic etiquette."
— Mos Def

IN CHAPTER 10: Classroom Protocols, we focused on the technology and

logistics. I think of these as administrative protocols, basic classroom
management. In this chapter, we will concentrate on the interpersonal protocols
—group etiquette. Our specific recipes for group etiquette will differ depending
on the age of our learners, the goals of their learning teams, and our cultural
settings. Still, our end goal will be the same regardless of our context: We want
to establish norms of behavior so that our students can conduct vibrant,
challenging conversations and work as a team to complete collaborative
tasks and projects.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines etiquette as "the set of rules or customs that
control accepted behavior in particular social groups or social situations."
Etiquette goes beyond rules. It shapes how we understand what it means to
belong to a particular group. In other words, etiquette is a powerful tool to shape
both accepted behavior and our corporate identity.
Rather than a list of rules, I like to think of these as commitments we make to
one another. Rules are appropriate, but they tend to focus on negative and
individual behavior. While they may need to address some negative behavior,
they should point us toward a common positive experience. Instead of
prescribing specific rules and behaviors, we can ask our learning teams to create
and pledge to follow a set of commitments. These are commitments to such
things as mutual respect, self-awareness, and coming prepared to class. These
keep us from constantly having to manage group dynamics by placing the
responsibility for group cohesion into the hands of our learners. What follows is
a set of seven etiquette commitments. You can download this commitment
template from the Online Teaching with Zoom website and customize them to
suit your particular set of students. 1
Our Commitments (The Etiquette Ingredient List)
Commitment #1: Mutual Respect
Mutual respect is more than a disposition; it must show itself through our actions
and words. The key to a good etiquette statement for mutual respect is to make it
tangible. Here are a few concrete indicators to describe this commitment to
mutual respect.

We commit to listen to one another and to show that we're listening by

asking for more information or clarifications when it would help us to
better understand what's been said.
When we disagree (and we will), we will work to be curious and open.
We will become more comfortable with silence and allow space for our
more reflective peers to think.
When we disagree or encounter a heated topic, we commit to behave in
ways that are not rude or attacking but to have patience with each other
during those more challenging moments of conversation.

Commitment #2: Self-Awareness

We commit to noticing ourselves: our tone, the volume of our voice, our
attitude, and to be open to others in the group who point out things we
may not be able to notice on our own.
We commit to notice when we might be slipping into advice-giving and
side-conversations.
We commit to noticing and pointing out when one of us is dominating
the conversation and to create more space for other voices.

Commitment #3: A Commitment to Participate

Every learner is a participant, but participation can look very different for
different personalities. Consequently, this a commitment that groups should
discuss, with each member sharing what they bring to the conversation. An
introvert may say, "I'm good at seeing what is missing in a conversation, but it
takes me some time to figure it out. So, I'll likely listen for a while and may need
some space so that I can speak. It would help if the group could, from time to
time, ask me for my thoughts."
The participation commitment is a great place to address the quality of
conversation. For example:

Instead of generic agreements, such as, "I think that's a really good
point…" We will respond with specific reasons why or ask specific
questions to better understand what's been stated. Here are a couple of
examples: "I agree with you, but I'm not exactly sure why. So, it would
help me if you would explain more about…" or "That's a good point
because it agrees with what Jen was saying about…"
We commit to staying engaged when there is tension and the topic is
stretching us.
We all take responsibility for moving the conversation forward by
asking questions, making connections, and building on the ideas of
others.
We agree to mix things up, not getting stuck in the rut of the same
people going in the same order for the same amount of time.

Commitment #4: Paying Attention to Time

This is a shared commitment to progress through the distinct phases of the
discussion toward its goal. It may help to designate an individual to do this. If
groups choose to have a timekeeper, they should rotate the role within the group.
Commitment #5: To Talk about What's Not Working
This is one of my favorite commitments because it invests everyone in the group
with a responsibility to speak up whenever the group finds itself stuck or off-
track.
We agree to speak up and talk about the following when we notice them
happening:

When our conversation gets off-topic

When there is prolonged, unbalanced participation
When we are stuck and feel like the conversation is going nowhere
When we are generic or overly agreeable
When our behavior is not matching our commitments
Commitment #6: Avoid or Decide to Incorporate Side-Conversations
When we notice a side-conversation has developed, we commit to pausing to
address it. If it's an important topic and relevant to the group discussion, we will
bring it to the group to decide how we might incorporate it into our group
conversation. If it is off-topic, we commit to returning our attention to the entire
group and the topic at hand.
Commitment #7: Coming Prepared
The quality of our conversation depends on every member coming to class
informed and ready. We commit to coming to each class time having completed
any Zoom preps, reading, or other assignments needed to have a meaningful
conversation or complete our project or task.
Have an Etiquette Discussion
It's tempting to pass out an etiquette checklist, field a few student questions, get
their assent, and move on. But commitment requires a process. Instead of
conducting a brief etiquette overview, devote one of the first group meetings to
deliberating these commitments. Here are a few prompts we can use for this
purpose:

What are 1 or 2 commitments most important to you?

What will be the 1 or 2 most challenging commitments for you?
How can your group help you with these challenges?
When you reflect on the entire set of commitments, what's the overall
purpose or goal behind them?
What might you suggest adding to your team's commitments?
As you reflect on these, what strengths do you bring to the team?
Reinforcing and Modeling Etiquette
For online teachers, regular communication is essential. Usually, this is a weekly
email announcement addressing housekeeping items. These announcements
provide a perfect opportunity to forecast etiquette that may be pertinent to an
upcoming conversation. For instance, a particular discussion may demand more
from students' commitment to listening, especially when they disagree. By
reminding students of their etiquette commitments, we communicate that these
are more than a list of ideals on a sheet of paper only discussed at the beginning
of the term.
As mentioned earlier, much of what our students view on television and social
media cuts cross-grain to these commitments. Because of this, they need to see
their teachers model the attributes of constructive discourse. We can do this by
hosting embedded conversations within the large-group experience, inviting a set
of three to four students to volunteer to participate with the instructor in a
challenging conversation "in front of" the larger class.
16
 BREAKOUT SIZES AND DYNAMICS

You cannot communicate complicated information to large groups

of people. As you increase the number of people, you have to
decrease the complexity of the information.”
— Andy Stanley

PHYSICAL CLASSROOMS HAVE CONSTRAINTS: square footage, number

of chairs, acoustics, whiteboard space, technology limits, lighting controls, etc. If
you’ve taught at a college or university, you’ve probably experienced the
challenges associated with changing classrooms or teaching in multiple
classrooms. These spaces we occupy impact learning, and Zoom meetings are no
different. To be successful educators, we need to know how the “size” and
virtual “space” of the videoconference classroom impacts our students and our
learning goals. Let’s look at some of these constraints and how we might
optimize the sizes of our Zoom classroom.
Group-Sizes
Optimal group size will always depend on our learning goals, the format of the
course, and our dominant pedagogy. What follows are a few rules-of-thumb for
thinking through group dynamics:

Large groups benefit from the variety of expertise and experience of the
members. However, with more members, participants have fewer
opportunities to participate.
Large groups are suitable for idea generation and shorter conversations.
Larger groups require a leader to emerge who will direct the
conversation. In settings of more than five students, the instructor is
typically the group leader.
Smaller groups benefit from closer relationships, agreement on goals,
and more opportunity for participation. They are ideal for completing
tasks, projects, and moving deeper into critical thinking.
Groups of 2-3 work well for peer review and evaluation tasks.
Groups of 3 tend to be more effective for project-based work.
Groups of 4 sometimes result in the group breaking into two pairs, and
this can mitigate the quality of conversation.
Groups of 3-5 tend to be optimal for discussion-based learning.
When is a Class or Group Just Too Big for Discussion?
When you combine the realities of screen real estate and group dynamics, we hit
the ceiling for academic discussions around 10-12 learners. For conversations to
move further into critical thinking, we probably hit that ceiling at 5-6 learners.
After these inflection points, we need to adapt by leveraging breakout rooms for
more in-depth learning conversations, and strategically using large-group session
structures for things like debriefs and presenting new material.
Should I Choose Groups or Allow Students to Choose?
Choose groups for your students at random. This allows your groups to develop
their own identity and style of relating. It also makes room for a more diverse
learning team. When students self-select groups, they choose peers they know
and like, and those relationships come with a set of built-in relational dynamics
that tend to stifle good learning conversations. This, of course, is not always the
case, but it is the strong tendency of self-selected groups. Most learning
management systems will generate course groups randomly and by the desired
group size. This is the best way to establish groups because it then allows you to
communicate with your groups via the LMS. It also sets you up to offer
asynchronous discussions and other online activities by groups within your
Learning Management System. Additionally, there are random group generators
available online (just search for random group generators).
Large Group Limitations
In large groups (more than 12), communication will tend toward monologue
rather than dialogue and information-sharing rather than higher-order thinking
activities like problem-solving. We must face these facts so that we don’t find
them working against us. For most students, large-group discussion is spectator
dialogue because they spend most of their time observing, rather than
participating in, the conversation. However, interviews can make for fascinating
spectator dialogue. Invite a colleague, practitioner, or subject matter expert to a
class session. Involve your students by having them submit questions or
participate in a time of Q&A.
Technical Limitations

We could conceivably include thousands of students in our Zoom classroom. 1

However, if you want to see your students and interact with them individually,
the four walls of the live video session are the four sides of your screen. As
teachers, this will be our most obvious limitation because it impacts how many
students you can see and interact with while you teach. Right now, Zoom can
accommodate up to 49 participants on one screen in its gallery view. This can be
further limited by the capacity of your computer’s processor and whether or not
you have the most up-to-date Zoom software. These more technical realities are
essential to consider as we think through what we expect to work and won’t
work in this space.
In the next two chapters, we’re going to shift gears from team building to team
guiding. We’ll do this by providing our learning teams with two essential tools:
Zoom Preps and discussion guides.
17
 ZOOM PREPS

One of the greatest benefits of flipping is that overall interaction

increases: teacher-to-student, and student-to-student.”
― Aaron Sams, Flip Your Classroom

I HAVE the joy of working with an incredible team of instructional designers.

One of our instructional designers was working with a professor to develop a
new online course that included several Zoom class sessions. But the first live
session fell flat. Conversation limped along, and the professor felt too much
responsibility to carry the work of learning. The instructional designer
immediately recognized the problem, so she asked, “Did you require a Zoom
Prep before the session?” The idea hadn’t occurred to him. So, they set to work
crafting a brief preparation activity for each of his future Zoom meetings. The
next week, the professor dropped by our office to share that his student
conversations turned the corner and improved significantly.
When we design Zoom sessions, the most important question we can ask
ourselves is: How will my students prepare for this meeting? This kind of
pre-work will radically improve the quality of discussion and collaboration. At
the same time, I’m not a fan of adding a bunch of extra work for students. Over
the days and weeks of a course, this can compound into a burden and start to feel
like busywork. Two principles can keep us out of this ditch and make these
activities meaningful.
#1 - Keep Zoom Prep exercises brief
#2 - Keep Zoom Preps meaningful by integrating them with existing work, such
as assigned reading, lecture viewing, or other more significant assignments.
Let’s look at a couple examples to get a sense of how Zoom Preps work.
Zoom Prep Instructions and Examples
Example #1
Preparing for our Zoom Session: This week, take notes while viewing the lecture
videos. Jot down 2-3 questions you have about the material. Afterward, spend 5-
10 minutes reviewing your notes and reflecting. Allow space for other questions
to emerge. Use this time to select one question you would like to pose to the
class during our Zoom session. Post this question in this week’s online forum by
Wednesday at 11:55 PM. I will review these before our time together, and we’ll
discuss them in class.
Let’s dissect this example and draw out a few tips from it.
1. Be Specific. The example asks students for 2-3 questions, then to narrow to
one question for posting.
2. Focus Attention. Our students get saturated with information. Our Zoom Prep
instructions should help them focus on what matters most for the upcoming
session. Is it a chapter in their reading, a specific article, or a segment of a
video? Direct their attention to what matters most and what you plan to discuss
in your live session.
3. Concrete Action. The best prep exercises include a means of accountability
by requiring students to take a simple and concrete action. In our example,
students post a question before the session, and by a specific day and time.
4. Use Minutes. Without a time-boundary, the type-A, perfectionist students can
pour hours into a brief prep exercise. Other students will not invest enough time
and attention to the work. The solution is to time-box the activity. Our example
asks the students to spend 5-10 minutes, reflecting on their notes and choosing a
question.
5. Your Follow-up. Explain how you will use their prep work in the session.
This integration creates accountability and removes it from the category of
busywork.
6. Supports Existing Work. This preparation exercise supports the existing
work of asynchronous lecture viewing instead of adding a completely different
and new task.
Example #2
Here’s a second example that leverages an existing project and a collaborative
session structure.
By Monday, you will have completed the first draft of your paper. Before our
session, invest about 15 minutes reading over your paper to determine what
feedback you need. At the top of your paper, type out 2-3 requests for feedback.
Have this ready to screen share in your breakout groups during this week’s live
session.
To Grade or Not to Grade
Our grading philosophy will determine how we approach Zoom Preps. First, I
want to get a good estimate for how much time I’m requiring my students to
invest in prep work. If I’m asking for a significant investment, then I might want
to consider making these a graded element of the course. At the same time, we
don’t want to proliferate graded items in our courses (online courses are
infamous for this—much to the chagrin of teachers and students alike). One
solution to this is to create a one-question completion quiz each week where
students indicate whether or not they have completed their Zoom Prep prior to
class. Because these are non-qualitative and self-reported measures, I might give
Zoom Preps a smaller weight in the overall grading structure. Even with a low
weighting, students tend to take these graded items more seriously than a non-
graded item.
Another helpful solution is to use a more detailed self-assessment. In these,
students reflect on their Zoom Prep work, their consistency in doing them before
class, how prepared they feel for the conversations, and how they can improve
their contribution to future discussions. I like this approach because it’s a meta-
cognitive task. The self-assessment approach also reinforces the sense of
responsibility each learner has for the quality of their team discussions. To
implement this approach, provide students with a short rubric and an online quiz
or assignment submission where they can post their responses. These online
submissions also serve as a great place to provide students with feedback. For
instance, a student may self-report that they are doing a great job in coming
prepared for the conversation. Still, I may have noticed a couple of sessions
where it was evident that they had rushed through or not fully completed the
Zoom Prep. Such situations provide me an opportunity to note the discrepancy
and suggest ways for my students to improve.

We should remember that good fortune often happens when

opportunity meets with preparation."
― Thomas A. Edison
Make Zoom Preps Meaningful Work
As teachers, we can see how a Zoom Prep meets our learning objectives, but our
students must be able to see and feel the connection. Unless Zoom Preps are
integrated into the life of the course, students will see them as unnecessary and
obligatory elements. Here are three tips for integrating Zoom Preps into your
course so that they don’t become disconnected extras.
#1 Scaffold larger assignments
Typically, our courses require students to place a disproportionate amount of
time, effort, and concern into a final project or two or three larger assignments.
How can their Zoom Prep and conversations scaffold these projects and papers?
If it’s a good assignment, then it’s worthy of this kind of time and discussion.
Look through your major assignments and make a list of topics or ideas that
directly relate to what students must understand to complete their work. Finally,
explain the linkage to students. Make it explicit by writing out, “This Zoom Prep
and our conversation this week will help you think through a couple of key parts
of your final paper…”
#2 Make it true Zoom Prep or throw it out
Students should feel like the prep is an essential element and not additional or
unrelated work. The primary culprit for this—at least that I’ve witnessed—is
unused preps. For example, students spend time reading an article, watching
videos, responding to questions. Still, the teacher never gets to the topic of the
prep in class. I’ve been guilty of this, particularly in over-prepare-mode, when I
have more material than I can reasonably work through in a class session. At
best, students are disappointed. At worst, students resent the prep work and stop
investing time in them. As we’ll see in the chapter on discussion guides, it’s
helpful to note the dependencies between Zoom Preps and discussion guides.
Creating explicit links between the preps and discussion guides is probably
the best habit I can think of for keeping things integrated. It also prevents us
from unintentionally disregarding the work students have done to prepare for
class.
#3 Set them up for failure
Okay, I realize that we never want to really set our students up for failure. But I
thought that might get your attention. What I mean here is we make the Zoom
Prep so essential to the upcoming conversation, that to come unprepared makes
the conversation or task so challenging that students quickly learn the
importance of these activities. This is especially helpful during the early weeks
of a course because it communicates to our students that we are serious about the
prep work.
Delivering Zoom Prep Instructions
Finally, there are several ways we can deliver the instructions for our prep
exercises.

Build a dedicated space on your online course site to house them.

Create an appendix to your syllabus listing all the prep exercises.
Send Zoom Preps via class announcements or email.

The first two approaches allow for editing, but they communicate a more static
sequence to the course. If your teaching style is more adaptive and you want to
customize your prep for each session, you can send out the prep exercise
instructions as a class-wide announcement. Just be sure you are consistent in
sending these out well ahead of time so that your learners have enough time to
complete them before class.
18
 DISCUSSION GUIDES

I want to…[stress] how important it is that small group activities be

carefully structured. The activities students say they find to be most
productive are the ones in which the ground rules are clearly stated
and understood."⁠
- Stephen Brookfield, Teaching for Critical Thinking

ANOTHER WAY TO create structure in the Zoom classroom is to provide our

breakout teams with discussion or activity guides. These give our learning teams
a step-by-step process for their conversation or collaborative task. Additionally,
they help teams focus on the learning objective, point out the necessary skills,
and reference the etiquette commitments most relevant to their work. In what
follows, we'll review the essential elements of an effective discussion or activity
guide. (For guide examples, see the companion webpage for this chapter.) 1
A Basic Outline for Discussion Guides
1. A Scenario, Case, Common Reading, Simulation, Problem Statement, or
Task
This is the setup and the heart of the discussion or activity. Here we define the
objective, pose the problem, and describe the task.
2. Necessary Resources
What prior learning or common understanding do students need to succeed in
this activity? This is where our Zoom Preps will often integrate into these
guides. Addressing the Zoom Prep directly within the discussion guides creates a
sense of social accountability and a positive peer pressure to come to the group
prepared. Usually, the initial prompt or phase of the activity or discussion is to
review the Zoom Prep. In addition to the Zoom Prep, other necessary resources
may include a short article pdf, a web link to a resource, textbook page
references, or course notes.
3. Framework
The framework outlines for your breakout teams the specific steps they must
take to move through to accomplish their work. One of the teacher-side benefits
of this outline is that it will help you see where your learning teams are most
likely to need your support. You'll know when to jump in and clarify things,
offer new lines of inquiry, or challenge them to persist during the more difficult
phases of their work.
4. Etiquette Commitments
Here we call on our etiquette commitments and forecast how specific
commitments may apply to the conversation at hand.
5. Necessary Skills
Think of a specific discussion or collaboration skill you want your students to
practice or is essential to the success of their work. Then build it into your guide.
Such skills include: pausing to reflect, appreciation, asking follow-up questions,
active-listening practices, the delegation of tasks, debriefing prior project work,
understanding checks, summarizing the thoughts of others, etc.
6. Keep it Simple
I recommend keeping discussion guides to a half-page in length. Any more than
that and you're likely bogging the team down with too much detail. We are
aiming for just enough structure to scaffold their time and not so much that we
inadvertently stifle conversations or micromanage their tasks. However, if you
have a class that meets more than once a week, consider structuring the entire
week with an extended discussion guide.
7. Timeboxing
Provide timeboxes for the different phases of the conversation. For example,
students might spend 15 minutes discussing a case or scenario, clarifying the
problem, and level setting common understandings. In phase two, they spend 20
minutes examining the evidence, and in phase three, they spend five minutes
creating a summary to share with the large group. By creating these milestones,
you’ll keep breakout teams moving at a similar pace and make your job
supporting them much easier.
19
 FACILITATING BREAKOUTS

EARLIER, I mentioned that Part 4 has both are now and later segments. This
chapter on facilitating breakouts probably falls into that later category. You
won’t necessarily need these skills to get started teaching with Zoom, but they
will help you later to improve your teaching. There are three core skills to
facilitate learning in breakout groups: 1) assertive leadership, 2) asking
questions, and 3) attending to the subtext of conversations and group dynamics.
Assertive Leadership
Students want their learning experience to flow, to feel dynamic, marked by
back-and-forth and give-and-take. They loathe the awkward pauses, and get
thrown off by classrooms where the communication feels hesitant and uncertain.
Actually, there are technical reasons for why the videoconference classroom is
prone to this awkwardness. 1 The principal reason is latency. Latency is the gap
between when the person speaks and when it’s heard. You can test this and
experience it by opening a Zoom meeting. Now, stare at yourself. Then blink.
You’ll see yourself blink—after you’ve blinked! This lag in communication
makes the videoconferenced classroom prone to a stutter-step experience and
clumsy communication. The primary solution for latency is to become more
assertive in how we lead our students. The following eight skills are helpful
for leading breakout groups, and many of the principles transferrable to large-
group and in-person settings.
The Skills of Assertive Leadership
#1 Interrupting
I’m a peacemaker at heart, so I hate interrupting my students. By interrupting,
many of us fear we will communicate a lack of respect or devalue our students’
contributions. In the Zoom classroom, strategic interrupting (or we could call it
“interjecting”) helps us overcome the hesitancy that latency tends to generate.

One of the issues I kept saying to my students is you have to learn to

interrupt. When you raise your hand at a meeting, by the time they
get to you, the point is not germane. So the bottom line is active
listening. If you are going to interrupt, you look for opportunities.
You have to know what you are talking about.”
— Madeleine Albright

As Madeleine Albright explains in the above quote, we can respectfully

interrupt, but to do so demands a high level of attention. This is another reason
why the Zoom classroom can be so mentally and physically demanding.
The best tool for this is to use an interruption phrase that best fits your
personality and teaching style. Here are a few to consider:

Address the student by name and summarize, “Trent, what I hear you
saying is…”
Address the student by name and give attention to something important
they said, “Amanda, I want to point out something you said…”
You’ll notice the first two approaches both lead with the student’s
name. It’s the most powerful single word you can use to turn the
conversation. Sometimes the best thing to do is say their name and
pause for them to respond with a “yes.” They have now given you the
floor.
“Let’s just pause for just a second.”
Interrupt with a screen share. Let your students know that you may, at
times, overtake the screen. Normalize this by telling students what to do
when this happens. “When we are in conversation, and I share a slide, I
want you to know that I value what you’re saying. At the same time, I
 want to transition the conversation. When this happens, try to wrap up
your thoughts in 30 seconds or less.”

We can also interrupt with our body language. Move closer to the camera to
signal to the student that it’s time to conclude their thoughts. If we make this cue
a consistent habit, many of our learners will recognize it as a dependable signal
that we are ready for them to wrap up.
Normalize interruption by talking with your students about how and why you
will interrupt. You might say something like, “I’m going to interrupt every one
of you this semester. Often, it’s because you’ve said something important, and I
wanted to slow down the conversation and give that point particular attention. At
other times, the conversation may have diverged too far from our original
learning goal, so I’ll bring us back on track. But I want you to be confident that I
never intend to disrespect you or your ideas.”
#2 Pacing
We have a phenomenon up in the high country of the Rocky Mountains called
flash-boom-flash lightning. Bolts of lightning rain down in such succession that
the next bolt hits while you are still hearing and feeling the thunder produced by
the prior strike. Good conversations have a flash-boom-flash dynamic. Observe
any discussion you have today and notice how quickly the responses occur and
even overlap one another. Because these interchanges occur in fractions-of-a-
second, the latency of videoconferencing just can’t keep up. Because of this, we
have to slow down our conversations. While this can feel frustrating, it may be
just what we need to become more reflective teachers and learners. When we
slow down, we listen better, we become more thoughtful, and perhaps more
patient with one another. We’ll explore this more in the practice of attending.
#3 Normalizing Silence
Not all gaps in conversation are bad. Brookfield and Preskill encourage us to see
silence as normal and helpful: “Don’t panic at silence. At the start of a
discussion, there may be long periods of silence as people settle into the new
intellectual project that the conversation represents.” 2 To make our students
comfortable with silence, we first have to be okay with it ourselves. I find that a
subtle smile during those periods of quiet, taking the time to jot down notes on a
piece of paper, even looking up and to the right as I ponder, tell my students that
we are in a non-anxious space.
 Don’t mistake students’ silence for mental inertia or disengagement.
Conversation is halting, tentative, and circuitous, filled with
hesitations and awkward attempts at reformulating thoughts even as
we speak them.”
— Brookfield and Preskill in Discussion as a Way of Teaching.

In addition to modeling silence in the conversation, we can explain how quiet

spaces contribute to our learning by providing us time to reflect and observe.
Talk with students about those awkward moments when the conversation stalls.
Instead of seeing them as uncomfortable threats, reframe them as important
transition points where we can stay in the silence and reflect, ask for an
understanding check, or regroup the conversation.
#4 Creating Equity
Students tell us they desire everyone to speak up and share during a discussion,
and for each person to speak for an equal amount of time. This is an idealized
expectation. The heart of this desire is good, but the only way to guarantee this
kind of 100% equality in conversation is to impose policies that are more likely
to stifle it. Moreover, introverted learners and internal processors may not desire
equal talk time. Often, a 10-second contribution by a reflective student provides
disproportionate value, changing and deepening the course of the conversation.
So, what is at the heart of students’ desire for equal time to talk? I think it’s a
sense of equity.
We’ll define equity as all students knowing they have the same opportunity to
contribute to the conversation, and that everyone in the class or group will
respect their contributions. Equity is established, not in one conversation, but
within the group culture throughout many discussions or breakout
collaborations. Instead of equity, we might have them consider balance or
fairness—whatever term best suits our setting. But many of our learners will
likely have to move from their idealized expectations of “equal time”to the
“equal opportunity and respect” mindset. An effective way to lead students into
this mindset is with moments of brief reflection, situated near the end of class.
For example:

What made your conversation feel balanced, or perhaps out of balance?

As you look toward to future team discussions (or tasks), what would
help you strike a balance of participation?
Much of how we create equity comes down to how we work with dominant
voices and quieter students. It’s an art, but one we can learn and develop.
#5 Working with Dominant Voices
Dominant voices can create a myriad of problems and significantly disrupt
learning for a majority of students. Outspoken students, when allowed to
command the conversation, often reinforce a single perspective. Additionally,
their peers might perceive them as authoritative or privileged. This perception
can further isolate already marginalized voices. In the worst cases, if we leave
dominant voices unchecked, quieter students feel alienated and resolve to keep
silent. Our goal is not to silence or even manage these voices but to create an
equitable and balanced classroom experience. The following practices will aid us
as we seek to do so.
Communicate your goals. By communicating our classroom goals early in the
class, we set expectations, and we cast a vision that we can return to throughout
term. In her excellent article, “Teaching Strategies for Classroom Equity,” Dr.
Kimberly Tanner explains, “Perhaps the most powerful teaching strategy in
building an inclusive and equitable learning environment is for instructors to be
explicit that the triad of access, fairness, and classroom equity is one of their key
goals.” 3 These values and goals become more meaningful when we can explain
to our students how they support learning, create a culture of diverse
perspectives, and shape an environment of openness.
Encourage self-awareness. Generally, the real problem with dominant speakers
is not a lack of self-control but a lack of self-awareness. We can pull these
students aside by contacting them via email or a private message in the Zoom
chat to set up a meeting to discuss their tendency to talk. Talk about the
unintended consequences of speaking too often, and how it might be impacting
the rest of the class. Encourage them to slow down and build their reflection
skills. Many of these students have a deep need to be heard. Spend some time
getting to know them, their life situation, and their goals. End the meeting with a
clear and simple plan, then ask them to type it out and send you a copy via
email. The email makes the commitment official and becomes something you
can reference in the future, both to remind them of their commitment and to
celebrate their progress.
Give dominant voices a role. A friend was attempting to train a young German
shepherd that was incredibly intelligent but unruly. He scheduled an
appointment with a professional trainer. The trainer observed the dog, walked to
his trunk, pulled out a dog backpack, and fastened the harness straps around the
animal. “He’s a working breed of dog. He needs a job.” The dog’s behavior
immediately shifted, and my friend was able to work with him.
It’s kind of weird to compare a student to a dog. My intent instead is to focus on
the principle. I was this kind of student in school. I was stir-crazy unless I had
something to do (I’m still this way). Many of our more vocal students fall into
this category and would benefit from having an active role within their learning
team or the large group. Such tasks might include taking notes, creating an
outline, developing slides, managing a collaborative document, group facilitator,
question asker, fact-checker, small-group presenter, or consensus builder. A
well-defined role is more likely to be well-executed. And in small groups, it’s
especially helpful to rotate these roles.
#6 Drawing out the Quiet Students
There is a myriad of reasons why students may be unwilling or feel
uncomfortable to talk, especially in a large-group setting. Without one-on-one
conversations with each of them, it’s impossible to discern. However, there are a
couple of go-to practices that have a disproportionately positive impact on more
introverted learners: creating safety and creating spaces for reflection. We’ve
touched on these practices, and here we’ll look more specifically at how we can
leverage these to support our more reserved students.
Creating safety. While writing this book, I observed an evening graduate course
where the professor did a masterful job of creating a welcoming and safe setting.
He included everyone by name, was genuinely interested in each of them, but he
did one thing that stood out: He was vulnerable. At multiple points in the class
session, he shared his own mistakes and shortcomings as both a teacher and a
professional. He could have said, “There are no stupid questions in my class,”
and that would have been fine. However, he went further and modeled it for his
students. His sharing communicated, “I don’t have it all together. We don’t have
it all together. And I don’t expect you to have it all together in my classroom.”
Such words persuade our more introverted learners that it’s safe to speak and
share in our classrooms.

Quiet thinkers are often motivated to speak more by seeing how

their voices shift the conversation.”
 — Kara Pranikoff, Teaching Talk

The most profound and conversation shifting comments often come from my
more introverted learners. They are much more at home with silence than their
extroverted peers, and they value an instructor who is comfortable with moments
of quiet. When the teacher becomes comfortable, she can set the entire virtual
room at ease, endorsing and valuing the introvert’s more composed disposition.
Creating spaces for reflection. A simple but effective practice is to take a few
30-second pauses during our sessions. We can only normalize these silent,
reflective spaces when we model it through practice. Another way to introduce
silence and reflection into our classrooms is by making it active with an online
reflection activity. Google forms are perhaps the easiest and most accessible way
to create these. Alternatively, we can build these using essay type quiz questions
or survey modules within our LMS. Kara Pranikoff, in her excellent book
Teaching Talk, calls this act of quiet reflection lingering. She explains, “We
want students to linger in their thinking, to allow themselves the time and space
to sit with an idea, to understand that brilliance does not come in a flash, and that
thinking takes time.” 4
Another alternative is to give our quieter learners permission to reflect and share
their ideas in the chat. We can reference these, read them out loud for the class,
and ask students to expound about the ideas they have posted. For example,
“Libby, in the chat, you mentioned a theory that I believe we overlooked in our
earlier conversation. Do you feel comfortable explaining how you think it may
apply to the topic at hand?”
Did you notice I gave Libby an out? Introverted learners like to know they have
an option. Giving them a safe place often means giving them both the
opportunity to talk and the opportunity to decline. More often than not, they will
choose to share.
#7 Calling on Students (Raising Hands)
I’ve recommended a more open and reflexive Zoom classroom, one with
unmuted microphones where students are encouraged to jump into the
conversation. However, this may not be realistic in your context. In this case,
raising hands is a time-proven solution, but Zoom presents some challenges.
With over twenty students on the screen—even with a large monitor—it can be
difficult to notice raised hands. And the raise hand feature in Zoom’s
participants list is difficult to see and cumbersome to use. We need something
that makes a raised hand more prominent. A white index card or folded sheet of
paper does the trick. It’s a much more apparent and visual signal because of the
movement it produces when a student raises the paper in front of their camera.
The new reactions feature in Zoom is a lot easier to see than the tiny raised hand
indicator because the reactions (clapping hands and thumbs up icons) are larger
and appear within the student thumbnails. You just have to redefine their use and
ask your students to use them to signal a raised hand.
#8 Managing the Clock. Working with breakout groups requires a higher level
of time-management. I’ve found that it helps to communicate in the language
of minutes and clock-time. There is a big difference between when a teacher
says, “We are going to take a 10-minute break,” and when they say, “We are
going to take a 10-minute break and be back in here and ready to go at 11:45.”
The more we can be explicit about time, the more likely we are to arrive on time.
Being this precise may initially feel like micromanagement, but the practice goes
a long way to replace some of the boundaries and borders that we often lose in
the virtual classroom.
Asking Questions
The quality of our questions makes the difference between an engaging learning
experience and a humdrum activity. This difference is usually surgical, requiring
us to fine-tune just a few words. Take this common question as an example; one
we often pose after a presentation or lecture:

"Does anyone have questions?"

What's wrong with this question? Expert interviewers would immediately notice
that this is a closed question, a question that elicits a yes or no answer. It boxes
the learner into binary thinking, which undermines open inquiry. Now, let's
make our surgical tweak.

"What questions do you have?"

This surgically tuned question is open. It assumes that inquiry is taking place,
that the learners have questions, and it may even assume that we, as the teachers,
have been unclear or perhaps have overlooked important information. Let's look
further into the characteristics of a good question.
Some Characteristics of a Good Question

They are open, not binary, and therefore keep students open to inquiry.
They lead learners to be concrete and specific with their responses.
They directly support your learning objectives.
Good questions address cognitive domains when the goal is cognitive
(e.g., to analyze a problem or to apply a new concept).
They address affective domains when dealing with affective goals and
values (e.g., asking for emotional responses, concerns, etc.).
Good questions recognize students' zone of proximal development and
scaffold inquiry into the next level of critical thinking.⁠ 5

Beginning, Middle, and End

Most discussions require us to spend 10% of the time to get the ball rolling,
about 80% of the time in the heart of the conversation, and 10% wrapping things
up. Each segment has unique goals, so let's consider questions that help in each
of these three phases of learning conversations.
Questions for Beginning a Discussion
I have a 1987 Toyota 4Runner. At the time of this writing, it's 32 years old and
has over 350K miles on it. A few years ago, I took it to a mechanic to have him
look it over, and he gave me one vital tip: When it's cold outside, take some time
to let it warm up. By starting the engine and giving the truck a few minutes to
warm up, the engine performs better when under the stress of driving. A cold
start is hard for students, too. Because of this, the best question to begin a
discussion is the question students have considered before coming to class.
You guessed it: Zoom Prep questions are the best place to start. These questions
set the context for the conversation and are often exploratory. We are not yet
going deep but setting the stage. Here are a few examples:

"After having finished the reading, how would you sum up what you
learned in one to two sentences?"
"As you view the online lecture material before class, I'd like to
consider one big question…Write out a brief 3-4 sentence reflection on
the question and come to class prepared to discuss this."
"What's the most important finding or piece of evidence from your
reading?"

These questions create anchor points and context for the larger conversation.
Another approach is to give our students the question at the beginning of class
and provide them a few minutes to reflect and write. When we do this, however,
we should clearly communicate the goal. Is it to set up a conversation, or is it to
set up a lecture? When we ask a question, students assume a conversation. We
can unintentionally bait and switch our students if we regularly ask prep
questions only to tee-up a lecture segment. This isn't a bad technique; it's just
important that we set the expectation so that our students understand the purpose
of their inquiry.
We can also start class with an exploratory question. Michael Stanier, in his
excellent book, The Coaching Habit, recommends beginning conversations with
the question, "What's on your mind?" 6 It may seem a bit dangerous to be so
open-ended. But the value in such a question is the vast array of potential
responses. Students may explain how they are thinking about the topic or how
distracted they are with worry over the upcoming exam or assignment. It's a
learner-centered question that can give us a pulse on our students as we begin
class.

It is not that I'm so smart. But I stay with the questions much
longer."
- Albert Einstein

Questions for the Middle of a Discussion

The middle is where we spend most of our conversation. The questions we ask
here depend upon our learning goals. If these goals are cognitive, we may want
to move students from a basic understanding of a concept to the application in a
real-world case. If our goal is affective, we need questions that get students to
consider their values, how they feel about an idea, what they believe about it,
etc. With adult learners, we will want to ask questions like, "How do you see this
working or not working in your professional setting?” Some of the most valuable
questions are about the conversation itself, metacognitive questions like, "Are
we off track?" or "We have just 20 minutes left. So, what direction should we
take?" At the companion webpage for this chapter, you’ll find question prompts
and stems to use for a variety of learning goals. 7
Questions for Concluding a Discussion
Our brains have an insatiable need to close the loop. We must see the end of the
movie, or the scene, hear the final note resolve in the music, finish the chapter or
paragraph, or sentence we are reading. It's the same in our conversations. We
need some questions to tie things up and consolidate our thoughts.

We have about five minutes left. What do we need to remember when

we pick up this conversation again next week?
What did we accomplish today in our conversation?
What is the most memorable thing you'll take away from this
conversation?
If you had to choose right now, with the information you've gained,
what would your group decide?
 What is unresolved that you would like to better understand or talk
about the next time we meet? Why?
What did your group discover or conclude that you believe would be
helpful to the entire class?

Some Final Tips for Asking Questions

Tip #1 - Use questions that begin with "What" instead of "Why." Questions that
begin with “What” are particularly helpful when asking students to provide
evidence or to justify their point of view. For example, we can transform, "Why
did you come to that conclusion?" to "What led you to that conclusion?" The
why question can unnecessarily put some students on the defensive, while the
what question assumes the student has clear reasons, even when they have yet to
process or explain them.
Tip #2 - Lead with curiosity. Start questions with phrases like, "That's
interesting…" "Now, you have us curious…" "I think you've got us
wondering…" These stems cultivate openness and go a long way to reinforce to
students that this is a safe environment for their thoughts to grow through
discussion.
Tip #3 - Soften questions with "perhaps…" I like the word "perhaps" because it
keeps us from leading the witness. Some more direct questions can feel like an
accusation, or that a teacher is assuming things about me. "Perhaps" keeps the
door open and promotes possibility thinking. For example, instead of saying,
"How is this concept confronting our stereotypes and biases?" we might say,
"Perhaps this concept is confronting some of our stereotypes and biases. (Pause)
Would one of you be willing to reflect on this for us?"
Attending
Attending is the practice of observing, then engaging students from that
place of having observed. It is sometimes called active listening. While
attending, we notice the beliefs of our students they may not be aware of, the
tensions between students, the force they use to communicate—in short, we are
paying attention to the subtext of the conversation, the human elements.
Attending is challenging because, to observe, I first must set aside what I want to
say. The task is made even more complicated because our role as teachers has
been defined as telling. The very terms we use for our profession are teacher,
professor, and instructor. All of those describe a telling role. Consequently, to
observe and notice can feel passive. However, attending is an incredibly
demanding practice.

It’s worth acknowledging the amount of mental energy it takes just

to listen and think within a conversation.”
Kara Pranikoff, Teaching Talk

To What Are We Attending?

Assumptions: The tacit beliefs our students hold that can disappear into
the background of their conversations.
Level of energy and emotion: Energy and emotion show up in our
tone. We communicate them through body language and the volume of
our voice. Often, speakers are not aware of the level of energy they are
bringing to a conversation.
How connected the speaker to others. Is the speaker overly detached
or self-protective? Perhaps they are merged with the group and having a
difficult time differentiating so that they can know and share their point
of view.
Interpersonal dynamics: Is there relational tension getting in the way
of meaningful conversation? Left unaddressed, interpersonal dynamics
can overwhelm a conversation.
Avoiding Ownership: We feel safe when we can keep an idea at a
distance. Most of the time, this dynamic is subtle, but we see this come
up in learning conversations as students avoid owning their beliefs and
 emotions. A lack of ownership is evident when we speak about the
positions of others but never address our own perspective, talking about
“them” and “us” instead of “me” and “my.” We also sidestep ownership
by speaking in abstractions and generalizations. We can avoid
ownership by creating the never-ending-list of problems, avoiding the
crux of a matter by hiding it among a litany of other issues or details. As
you attend, you’ll be amazed at the creative ways we humans use to
avoid dealing with the most critical problems and uncomfortable ideas
we encounter.
Specific emotions: We attend to the unspoken feelings playing out in
the conversation, coming from individuals or being experienced by the
group.
Connections: Brookfield and Preskill say, “…one of the most valuable
benefits of good listening is that it increases continuity.” 8 As we attend,
we notice the common threads, themes, or how a recent comment
relates to something another student said ten minutes ago. By making
connections, we can create a more cohesive experience between
learners and between concepts.

Good teachers are artful listeners who don’t just remain quiet when
their students are talking. Instead, they strain to hear both the
explicit and the underlying meanings of their students’
contributions.”
— Brookfield and Preskill, Discussion as a Way of Teaching

What to Do with What We Have Observed?

We share with the group what we’ve noticed. “I want to pause us for
just a moment because I’ve noticed…”
We speak directly to specific students, “John, I noticed that when we
start talking about _______ you lean forward like you have something
you want to say.” “Jasmine, you’ve been quiet for much of our
conversation, but I noticed you shaking your head in disagreement with
something earlier. Would you be willing to share?”
Speak to group dynamics: “While we were talking, I noticed something.
We seem to be talking around and not directly about the part racism
may have to play in this. Why do you think we are responding this
 way?”

Attending Requires Time

It’s difficult, maybe impossible, to drop into breakout groups for a few minutes
and attend to the conversation. Without the context of the prior conversation, we
may pull things out of context. The group may perceive us as an outsider. To
attend, we must be present for longer durations of time, preferably from the
beginning of the conversation. If we drop into it after it’s started, then it’s a good
idea to ask the group to catch us up on the progress of the conversation.
Depending on the duration of our class, it means we may only get to one or two
breakout groups during the session. In that case, we should let our students know
how we plan to rotate between groups and how often.
Because attending is an art, anticipate failing a good bit as you try it out. Don’t
worry; any lack of success is not proof that it doesn’t work. It’s just proof we
need more practice. It’s a practice that will benefit us in the classroom, in our
professional and our personal relationships.
20
 IMPROVING OUR GAME

“One of the biggest myths about self-awareness is that it’s all about
looking inward—that is, insight from the inside out. But armed with
only our own observations, even the most dedicated students of self-
awareness among us risk missing a key piece of the puzzle.”
— Tasha Eurich, Insight

ANDERS ERICSSON, researcher and professor of psychology, studied how

experts went from having ordinary skills to becoming expert performers. His
research found that experts followed a similar approach to improve their skills,
one that he terms deliberate practice. The critical component to deliberate
practice was feedback. Experts became experts because they elicited feedback,
then worked that feedback into their practice.
Asking for and listening to feedback is incredibly challenging. I would rather get
everything right the first time. I don’t want people pointing out my weaknesses,
and I don’t enjoy reflecting on my mistakes. We invest a lot of energy avoiding
those things. But if we can negotiate that emotional barrier and work feedback
into our practice, it’s what will make the difference between plateauing at the
level of a good teacher or pressing on to become a master teacher.
Zoom provides us a unique opportunity to transform our teaching and improve
our craft like never before. We can collect and review feedback from polls,
chats, and recordings to become more responsive, find our blind spots, and even
improve our teaching skills in-the-moment. The technology puts this all within
our reach—if we have the courage to ask for and listen to the feedback.
Feedback offers us another way to build rapport with our students. When
students see us work their feedback into our teaching, we engender trust and
respect. Further, when we ask for feedback, we model for our students what it
looks like to be curious, lifelong learners. Many students get stuck in their
learning because they believe they have to get it right all the time. When we
model this openness to critique, we chip away at the fear of failure that prevents
so many students from overcoming this barrier to learning.
Feedback also gives us a more accurate understanding of our students’ learning
needs. We hear a lot of talk about differentiated instruction and matching our
teaching to a variety of learning needs. Feedback is what clues us in on those
needs in a more personized way. Personized is a term coined by professor of
organizational psychology, Ed Schein. 1 It may be best understood by comparing
the idea with the more familiar concept of personalizing. We personalize
education when we customize our teaching to the needs of an individual.
Personizing is less about customization and more about connection and
relationship. From a student perspective, it’s the sense that you understand how
I think and what I value. I trust you because you are the type of person who
hears and understands me. Our responsiveness to feedback makes that possible.
Zoom offers us an unprecedented set of opportunities to make feedback a regular
part of our teaching. What follows are six methods and tips for implementing
feedback in your virtual classroom.
#1 Record and Watch Yourself
It’s not thrilling to go back and view ourselves teaching, but evidence shows it
may be the most effective way to improve our craft. For over 15 years, the
Melbourne Educational Research Institute has conducted a project to synthesize
over 800 meta-analyses to find out what practices most impact student
achievement. 2 Toward the very top of the list of over 200 indicators is a practice
called microteaching. Microteaching includes recording a brief teaching session,
then sitting down to review the recording with a fellow teacher, supervisor, or a
community of practice.
In the past, this required expensive equipment and was time-consuming. With
Zoom, these recording tools are right at your fingertips. Instead of a video
camera on a tripod at the back of the classroom, Zoom has a live camera on the
teacher and every student, recording our responses and facial expressions. Zoom
also creates transcripts of the session by converting speech to text, providing you
with a valuable verbatim document (this transcription is not always accurate, and
it’s sometimes humorous, but it’s still helpful).
You can automate this by setting your Zoom account to record every session
automatically. The key to this practice is to team up with at least one other
colleague to get outside feedback. This also gives you an opportunity to learn
from their recorded sessions. Keep the reviews short, watching segments of your
instruction. (See the companion webpage for this chapter for more resources on
microteaching). 3
#2 Use Polls for Informal Checks
As an online course developer, I’ve recorded and edited countless hours of class
video lectures. From this time spent editing, I’ve noticed every teacher has a
transition word or phrase, and that these catch-phrases have something in
common. Here are a few examples: “Making sense?” “Tracking with me?”
“Ready to move on?” These all are verbal attempts at informal checks, taking the
pulse of our students to see whether or not they comprehend what we have just
explained. But such informal checks rarely elicit genuine feedback. We read the
room looking for nodding heads and move on. But what if we really paused to
get feedback? Polls are an effective and fast way to do just that. Note the
transition points in your instruction, and at these points, use a poll to test for
comprehension. Not only does this give us valuable feedback about our students’
understanding, but it also gives us a real-time report on the effectiveness of our
instruction.
#3 Chat for Immediate Feedback
Chat is perfect for real-time feedback. While we are teaching, we can ask our
students or a teaching assistant to note what is confusing, unclear, and new or
surprising in the chat window. We’ve noted this practice earlier as a way to
employ informal checks for student learning, but it’s also an effective tool to
evaluate our teaching practices in-the-moment. Similar to polling, this real-time
reporting from our students can give us more timely and accurate information
about what’s work and what’s not working. At the end of a teaching session, we
can ask our learners an evaluative question such as, “What has helped or
detracted from your ability to learn today?” When class ends, Zoom saves a text
file of all your student chat responses, so you can review them before the next
time you teach.
#4 Make Feedback a Process
To be responsive to feedback, we need a process. A colleague of mine and
counseling educator creates what he calls a Weekly Feedback Loop in his course.
It’s a simple system, a survey on his course site where students can submit
feedback and questions during or after each class meeting. But what makes it
work is his process. Each week he reviews the responses and begins the next
class by referencing the input from the previous week. The routine is
straightforward and only takes 15-30 minutes to process. It includes 1) a place to
leave feedback, 2) a regular time to review the feedback, and 3) a consistent way
to respond to the feedback.
Educator Stephen Brookfield uses a method he calls a CIQ: Critical Incident
Questionnaire. 4 The CIQ is a five-minute exercise where students reflect on their
engagement, disengagement, and what the teacher or other students did during
the class session that advanced or hindered their learning. His process is similar:
“I review them before the first class meeting of the following week. I make a
note of the dominant themes and begin the next class by sharing with the
students a brief report.” Brookfield’s approach is learner-centered and meta-
cognitive (reflecting on the process of learning). Another strength of the CIQ is
it casts the learner—not the teacher—as the locus of learning, which reinforces
student ownership and responsibility.
Both examples are from college or graduate settings where classes meet once a
week. However, you may be in a context where your classes meet daily or
several times a week. In that case, it will probably be more realistic to use a
method like the CIQ on a weekly basis.

After so many years of researching the subject, I would go so far as

to say that self-awareness is the meta-skill of the twenty-first
century.”
- Tasha Eurich, Insight
#5 Make it Automatic (as much as possible)
They say the best way to build a savings account is to set up automatic deposits.
Automation works because it bypasses emotional resistance. We encounter
psychological barriers to saving money, like the fear we won’t have enough or
might miss out on the chance to purchase something. Because of this, we put off
saving. Similar emotions keep us from eliciting feedback: fear that we really are
terrible at teaching, fear our students will become overly critical, a concern that
we are creating unrealistic expectations, the need to get it right the first time, and
the list goes on. I believe this emotional hurdle is why so very few educators ask
for regular feedback. We need a means to bypass the resistance and make the
feedback automatic. Here are a few ideas to help automate feedback:

In your Learning Management System, create a feedback survey like

the CIQ or Weekly Feedback Loop. Copy the survey and put an instance
into each week, or another interval, within your course site. Send the
link to students via the chat window in Zoom.
If you share slide presentation files with your learners, place a link to a
feedback survey on the last slide for every class.
Create a reminder slide at the end of your presentations that directs
students to the survey.
#6 Keep the Feedback Process Simple
A 5-question survey may overwhelm your learners, so consider using a single
question. Here are a few examples:

What would most improve your learning experience during the next
class meeting?
What worked or helped you learn most during this class session?
The most important thing you should know about how I best learn is…
After today’s class session, what are you most curious about?
 AFTERWORD

I began writing this book in the Summer of 2019, several months before the
outbreak of COVID-19. When, in March of 2020, we found ourselves in a global
pandemic, I was disappointed that the book was incomplete and that I had
missed a crucial window when it might have benefited educators and students.
However, friends and colleagues reminded me that teaching with Zoom was
more than a response to a crisis. It’s a form of teaching that will be with us for
the long-term. So, I slowed down and reconnected with the goal of the book: to
help educators teach thoughtfully and effectively in this video-mediated learning
space.
I hope the book has helped readers who find themselves sent sideways by
urgency and the unexpected. At the same time, I hope these chapters help you to
slow down and consider long-term strategies and new practices to incorporate
into your teaching.
Reader, on behalf of your students, I want to say “Thank you” for your hard
work and the extra hours you’re investing to adapt your material and teaching
practices to this new learning environment. May you experience the fruits of
your labor and those transformational moments that fuel our love for teaching.
NOTES
 Introduction
1 Videoconferencing can be spelled as one word or two. In Online Teaching with Zoom, I’ve chosen to
spell it as a single word.
2 See Cal Newport's two books, Deep Work and Digital Minimalism.
3 https://support.zoom.us/
 1. The Equipment
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-1-resources/
2 Download the Classroom Protocols template at https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-10-
resources/
 2. Prepare Your Classroom
1 https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/205683899-Hot-Keys-and-Keyboard-Shortcuts-for-Zoom
2 https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/209605493-In-meeting-file-transfer
3 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-2-resources/
4 https://zoom.us/test
5 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-2-resources/
 3. Testing and Technical Difficulties
1 https://zoom.us/test
2 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-3-resources/
3 https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362663-Joining-a-meeting-by-phone
 4. Sharing
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-4-resources/
2 When I use the term, "plenary session," I am referring to the large group setting where every learner is on
the screen. This is in contrast to the small group or breakout setting. "Plenary" will be used interchangeably
with "large group."
3 This cannot be done with Apple Keynote in a single-monitor setup because Keynote only triggers
presenter view if you have more than one monitor.
 5. Breakout Room Basics
1 https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476093-Enabling-breakout-rooms
2 https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/206476313-Managing-breakout-rooms
3 https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/360032752671-Pre-assigning-participants-to-breakout-rooms
 7. Polls
1 Download the bonus material at https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-bonus/
 8. Security
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-8-resources/
2 https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201363333
 9. The Student Perspective
1 The feedback gathered is based on my work with students in graduate and high school settings beginning
in 2008 using Elluminate, Adobe Connect, Skype, and Zoom videoconferencing. They are not from a
formal study but are thematic issues from conversations with students, course evaluations, surveys, and
focus groups.
2 Download the bonus material at https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-bonus/
 10. Classroom Protocols
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-10-resources/
2 https://zoom.us/test
3 Olt, Phillip A. “Virtually There: Distant Freshmen Blended in Classes through Synchronous Online
Education.” Innovative Higher Education 43, no. 5 (October 2018): 381–95.
 11. Key Instructional Practices
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-bonus/
2 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-11-resources/
3 See the previous chapter on Classroom Protocols for more information on how to prepare your students
for this type of responsive environment.
4 Curt Thompson MD. “A Body of Work,” April 15, 2020. https://curtthompsonmd.com/a-body-of-work/.
5 Brown, Peter C. Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014, 67-101.
6 Deslauriers, Louis, Logan S. McCarty, Kelly Miller, Kristina Callaghan, and Greg Kestin. “Measuring
Actual Learning versus Feeling of Learning in Response to Being Actively Engaged in the
Classroom.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 116, no. 39 (September 24, 2019): 19251–
57.
7 Ibid.
8 See setup details at https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/209605493-In-meeting-file-transfer
 12. 30 Active Learning Methods
1 That’s a critical statement and one that should be supported. Because we are not able to do a deep dive
into education theories and the research on active learning, I’ll supply references at the Online Teaching
with Zoom webpage for this this chapter. https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-12-resources/
2 MacIsaac, Dan, ed. “Twilight of the Lecture by Craig Lambert , Harvard Magazine. The Physics
Teacher 51, no. 4 (April 2013): 254–254.
3 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-bonus
4 https://jigsaw.org
 14. Establishing Groups
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-14-resources/
2 Patrick Lencioni’s works are perhaps the most helpful resources for developing a better understanding of
team cohesion. See his books, The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team and The Advantage.
3 Scott, Kim. Radical Candor How to Get What You Want by Saying What You Mean. London: Pan Books,
2019.
4 Brookfield, Stephen, and Stephen Preskill. The Discussion Book: 50 Great Ways to Get People Talking.
First edition. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons, 2016, 233.
 15. Group Etiquette
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-15-resources/
 16. Breakout Sizes and Dynamics
1 At the time of this writing, depending on your license, Zoom can accommodate up to 10,000 participants
in a webinar and up to 500 in a meeting.
 18. Discussion Guides
1 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-18-resources/
 19. Facilitating Breakouts
1 For more on this, see my post at https://excellentonlineteaching.com/3-reasons-why-videoconference-
classrooms-feel-awkward/
2 Brookfield, Stephen, and Stephen Preskill. Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for
Democratic Classrooms. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005, 64-65.
3 Tanner, Kimberly D. “Structure Matters: Twenty-One Teaching Strategies to Promote Student
Engagement and Cultivate Classroom Equity.” CBE—Life Sciences Education 12, no. 3 (September 2013):
322–31
4 Pranikoff, Kara. Teaching Talk: A Practical Guide to Fostering Student Thinking and Conversation.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2017, 103.
5 Psychologist, Lev Vygotsky developed this term, often shorted to ZPD. He defines this as "the distance
between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of
potential development as determined through problem-solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration
with more capable peers"
Vygotskij, Lev Semenovič, and Michael Cole. Mind in Society: The Development of Higher Psychological
Processes. Nachdr. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1981, 86.
6 Bungay Stanier, Michael. The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead
Forever. Toronto: Box of Crayons Press, 2016, 39.
7 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-19-resources/
8 Brookfield, Stephen, and Stephen Preskill. Discussion as a Way of Teaching: Tools and Techniques for
Democratic Classrooms. 2nd ed. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2005, 90.
 20. Improving Our Game
1 Schein, Edgar H., and Peter A. Schein. Humble Leadership: The Power of Relationships, Openness, and
Trust. First edition. Oakland, CA: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, 2018.
2 https://visible-learning.org/hattie-ranking-influences-effect-sizes-learning-achievement/
3 https://excellentonlineteaching.com/otwz-chapter-20-resources/
4 You can download a word document copy of Brookfields CIQ instrument at
http://www.stephenbrookfield.com/ciq
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To my wife, Jenah: I'm grateful for your support and encouragement during this
year of writing. This project would not have been possible without your wisdom
and belief.
I want to express my gratitude to the many teachers and instructional designers
who provided feedback and recommended edits to early drafts of text: Marie
Beamer, David Brown, Chris Dickerson, Darryl Meekins, Kathleen Korondi,
Darryl Meekins, Michael Morrison, Stephaney Morrison, Kathy Perez, Christine
Roseveare, and Jeff Weiberg.
To Barbara Oakley: Your feedback transformed this text and has helped me
grow as a writer.
To Josh Bleeker, Joshua Cast, Will Haugerude, Torrence Jackson, Tim Koller,
Matt Toth, and Shawn Trueman: Your words of guidance and encouragement
came at critical moments. Thank you.
To the Faculty at Denver Seminary: Thank you for the many hours you've
invested with me learning how to teach thoughtfully in this new learning space.
This book is, in so many ways, the result of our work together.
 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Aaron Johnson is an Associate Dean of Educational Technology at Denver Seminary in Littleton, Colorado.
He has spent fifteen years in the field of online education, as a high school teacher, instructional designer,
and faculty developer. His book Excellent Online Teaching: Effective Strategies for a Successful Semester
Online has been an Amazon Bestseller, and used by hundreds of K-12 through Graduate programs
throughout the world. His undergraduate work in video production and media studies, helps him to think
critically about the tendencies of technologies and how to thoughtfully use them to support student learning.
His graduate work explored how students experience personal and social transformation in the online
learning environment. The question, “How are people formed through learning experiences?” continues to
drive his work.
Mr. Johnson has consulted and led workshop trainings for state university systems, international schools,
and online school districts. This work is motivated by his desire to simplify the work of distance educators
by helping them focus on the key practices that most benefit student learning.
An avid hiker, Johnson has explored hundreds of miles of Colorado’s Front Range and wilderness areas.
His hiking website, Dayhikes Near Denver, is used by over one million people each year.
He lives with his wife and two daughters in Castle Rock, Colorado.
To contact Aaron Johnson: [email protected]
Or visit: https://excellentonlineteaching.com
ALSO BY THE AUTHOR
 EXCELLENT ONLINE TEACHING

Book 1 in the Excellent Online Teaching Series

Purchase Excellent Online Teaching: Effective Strategies for a Successful Semester Online today at
Amazon.com
 https://excellentonlineteaching.com

If you have enjoyed this book, I’d be grateful for your review on Amazon.