About delivering better lectures

We hear you. It can be difficult to convert face-to-face lectures and discussions into online activities. In online learning, teachers lack the benefit of physical presence and the ability to check the energy of the students. Although this is true, digital learning environments also provide new ways for you to deliver better lectures. All it takes is an openness to exploration and experimentation. Here are some tips:

1. Divide your lessons into chunks. Attention span in front of a computer during a live video or audio lecture is shorter. Try splitting your hour-long lectures into smaller segments (or chunks). Brain science says that 20 minutes is an ideal length!

2. Interact. When you divide your lectures into smaller units, you give yourself space to add breaks in between. You can also use this time to ask questions or discussion muddled points. It is an ideal time to provide opportunities for students to share ideas, give inputs, check understanding, or apply their new knowledge.

3. Start strong, finish stronger. We sometimes forget that the beginning and end of a lecture are equally important as the body. Start strong by explicitly sharing the learning outcomes. Identify expectations as well: do they need materials, what prior knowledge is needed? This allows the students to prepare themselves for the lecture with more intention. Finish stronger by recapping the learning outcomes, providing next steps for deepening, or ask a reflection prompt. Hopefully, these tips help you facilitate retention of the new knowledge among your students

Utilizing classroom features

If you want to schedule your virtual classroom, take a look at the Setting up a virtual classroom section.

Let’s launch your virtual classroom! Once launched, everyone invited will be able to

• Share a file

• Annotate

• Enable recordings

Integrating Zoom meetings

Another way of conducting a virtual class is through the use of the virtual conference platform, Zoom! Most likely you have heard of this app as you prepare for this upcoming academic year. A lot of training and webinars are hosted on this app because of its variety of easy-to-use and easy-to-learn features. These features include

• Break out rooms which enables participants to attend mini- sessions at the same time

• Screen sharing which allows presenters to show materials to their participants

• Chat, which allows host and participants send messages to everyone in the group or privately

• Annotation for interaction, and many others

Because of these features, Zoom is also one of the widely used platforms for conducting classes for students. BrightSpace allows instructors to hold classes in Zoom through the share a weblink option. Here’s how!

1. Schedule your meeting through the Zoom app. Copy the link of your meeting.

2. Open your BrightSpace account.

3. Access the Course in which you want to hold your virtual class.

4. Go to the specific Unit and Lesson where your virtual class belongs.

5. Click Create New.

6. Choose Weblink. A popup window will appear. Paste the link of your zoom meeting in the Link. This is required. Then type a Display Name, which will be displayed instead of the link itself. Make the Display Name as specific as possible so that your students will know what the class is about or who it is for and when it is going to take place. An Example will be Virtual Class about online study techniques 10/01/20 3PM.

7. Choose Open in a New Tab and click Save. Once your students click this link from the contents, a new tab will appear and they will be redirected to launching the zoom link. The virtual class will only start on the scheduled date and time that you set.

Attaching multimedia content inside Units and Lessons

Introducing variation in containers for the learning materials can bring delight to your students! You can include audio files, videos and even external links.

Add audio files and videos by following these steps:

1. Go to the Course.

2. From the navigation bar, click Content.

3. Simply click the Unit or Lesson where you want to put your audio file or video.

4. Click Add Existing.

5. You’ll see a few options on what to add, and at the bottom of the screen you’ll see a Browse Files button. You can either drag and drop the file from your computer. Or, click Browse Files and locate the file inside your computer. Your uploaded file will automatically appear as a content inside your chosen Unit or Lesson.

Add external links by following these steps:

1. Go to the Course.

2. From the navigation bar, click Content.

3. Simply click the Unit or Lesson where you want to include an external link.

4. A pop up window will appear and you’ll see a few options on what to add. Choose Weblink.

5. Paste the link, type a display name and click Save.