Synchronous Teaching Using Zoom

Faculty in a Zoom Rooms Classroom and Online Zoom Classroom

• Requirement: TA in the physical classroom

• Students: meet in the physical classroom, students Zoom in

Technical Best Practices

1. Familiarize yourself with the Zoom equipment, as well as where to stand in the classroom, voice projections, etc. prior to starting the class. If possible, have the CA/TA join the call in another room and give feedback on your positioning and volume. 

2. Video etiquette: 

   1. Maintain eye contact with students that are joining through Zoom during the lecture. (This doesn’t mean looking at their faces on the screen, but looking at the camera lens)

3. During group discussions, put students that join through Zoom in a breakout room. 

Pedagogical Best Practices

1. To replicate a “whiteboard” style of teaching, take advantage of using new Word documents or PowerPoints to make notes as you are lecturing. 

   1. If using new Word documents or PowerPoints, be sure to upload them in your Canvas classroom in case your students were not able to follow along. If you plan to do so, be sure to let students know at the beginning of the class session so that they can focus more on the content than being concerned about keeping up with note-taking. 

   2. When using the physical whiteboards in classrooms, be sure to provide students more time for notes than usual so that students may follow along if they are joining through Zoom.

   3. Using a Word document or a PowerPoint document while screen sharing can give the live content production feeling of a whiteboard. 

   4. Zoom’s digital whiteboard may also be helpful. Practice with it ahead of time.

2. If you are using the whiteboard in the room, be sure that your CA/TA is capturing the whiteboard on camera long enough for the Zoom students to read it.