Delivering Distance Synchronous Courses

A Distance Synchronous course (with an Instruction Mode Code of “DS”) is a course where there are scheduled meeting times in Mainestreet, and you are connecting with students during those times using web-conferencing technology, like Zoom or Google Meet.

There are some great advantages to teaching a Distance Synchronous course, instead of an Online course section, including:

• You are able to see and communicate with distant students in real-time
• You can ask for course feedback, and formatively assess how students are doing as naturally as you do in your face-to-face classroom
• You can create interactive polls, activities, and small-grouping strategies to engage students in
• Creating opportunities for active participation and communication can reduce the transactional distance with students, and work to meet a variety of student learning preferences.

Key Considerations

Distance Synchronous ≠ Lecture while Distance Synchronous courses can be a great space to provide direct instruction, you should avoid using this modality as a ‘lecture-over-Zoom‘ opportunity.  Instead, take advantage of using your valuable ‘together’ time to group brainstorm, problem-solve, engage in peer-to-peer collaboration, and workshop or apply ideas!

Consolidate access if you are teaching a Distance Synchronous class, you should be using Brightspace (at a minimum), to post your Syllabus and important course success information, to link to your Zoom meetings, and access submits course assessments (and review feedback and grades).  It can save you time, posting key resources students will need to access in the LMS as well, as it becomes the student’s one-stop-shop for essential access.

Orienting Students on the First Day of Class

Familiarize students with the technology

Taking some steps to make students comfortable with the technology can help to minimize the sense of distance and make students more comfortable participating in class.

• Before the first class session: Reach out to students with information about how and where to access class meetings.
• During the first class session, give students a few minutes to become familiar with the controls they will be using in class.  Model how to update the Zoom thumbnail, name, and backgrounds, if you will be using.
• Consider a low-stakes ice-breaker type of activity, to allow students to practice joining and leaving small group rooms, and screen-sharing.
• Review your class procedures and norms, including clear communications about camera expectations and requirements.
• Ask students to practice muting and unmuting the microphone.

Developing webcasting-friendly materials

Creating Course Materials for Webcasting

You can utilize both hard hard copy and web-casting based visuals while web-casting. This checklist provides some guidelines for producing course materials that are Zoom-ready and accessible to all learners, both in the classroom with you, and at receive sites. Let’s look at some common materials we may use in a web-conferencing classroom:

Screen-casting a presentation

• A horizontal (landscape) format will display better
• Use only keywords or phrases. Don’t try to include the entire text of your lecture
• Do not use all capital letters–it is hard to read, as well as against common netiquette
• Limit each slide to seven lines of text. And follow accessible sans-serif fonts  size recommendations:

• Headings: 36-point (approximately ⅜ inch high)
• Subheadings or body text: 24-point (approximately ¼ inch high)
• Avoid using  hard to see color combinations 

Utilizing a document camera 

• Use a dark-colored felt-tip marker
• Use pastel-colored paper instead of white to reduce contrast
• Use large, legible letters. Print if necessary!
• Preview lighting display and adjust as needed.

• With printed materials, avoid thin lines and tight patterns as they tend to flicker over video.
• Zoom the document camera closer to focus on specific parts of a document when necessary.

Displaying content on a web site

• Use screen captures appropriately enlarged if possible.
• Use keyboard shortcuts for your PC or MAC, to increase screen size, decrease screen size and return to starting size, as necessary.  

Quick tips for Teaching with Zoom success

Columbia CTL explores annotation & whiteboarding tools as active teaching strategies in Zoom