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Hi lawprof friends, I am seeing a lot of Zoom anxiety in my timeline lately, so for whatever it& #39;s worth I thought I would offer three thoughts:
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My background: In March I took two classes online on 5 days notice (Conlaw & Crimpro). On 3/11 I used Zoom for the 1st time and on 3/15 I ran a class. Two weeks later I took over a 3rd class for a colleague who became ill. Over the summer I taught Conlaw II entirely online.
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Thought #1: Your class doesn& #39;t have to be Fancy to be a good class. If your class IS Fancy I& #39;m not hating! But I also think you can run a good class without fabulous lighting, slick videos, professional-quality technology, etc.
I taught all of my classes using fairly basic PowerPoints and my laptop& #39;s internal camera and microphone. It went fine. In fact I& #39;ll post my course evaluations at the end so everyone can see how much the students cared about my lack of Fancy. (Sneak preview: no one cared.) 4/
Thought #2: The students don& #39;t hate Zoom as much as you might think they do. They hate the *pandemic*, and understandably many of them don& #39;t like Zoom as much as in-person classes. 5/
But by and large I think the students are grateful that Zoom exists. They realize we can& #39;t have totally normal classes, and therefore that Zoom is a necessary way of not derailing their education / delaying their law degree for a year. 6/
Thought #3: The students can help you make your Zoom class better! One time I asked the students to (optionally) stay after class for a few minutes to help me understand how they take notes while on Zoom -- this was SO helpful and changed the way I prepare PowerPoints. 7/
In my recent introductory surveys (see below for an example) I ask students what helps them learn on Zoom and that has also been really informative. 8/ https://twitter.com/nancyleong/status/1295792939185008640?s=20">https://twitter.com/nancyleon...
I also did a survey I think 1/3 of the way into my summer class and learned a ton from that. 9/
And finally, if you are still figuring out the tech, you can enlist the students to help you in class! After the quick pivot during spring semester, I asked different students to volunteer to be the "moderator" for a few classes 10/
I made the student a co-host on Zoom & they were in charge of calling on people, jumping in when I didn& #39;t notice someone had a question, etc. I could also envision having a student as a backup to share your ppt slides, etc., so you can concentrate on the content of the class. /11
After I found I didn& #39;t need a moderator, but during the initial period it gave me several fewer things to think about. 12/
I& #39;ll just conclude by saying that the students want the same things on Zoom that they& #39;ve always wanted: do you know the material? can you answer their questions? are you invested in their learning? do you care about them? 13/
I almost forgot: students don& #39;t necessarily care about Fancy, see, e.g. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vbj88ib2rjqnp85/AADhOFxZHnkFL9lB9zbaFmsJa?dl=0">https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vbj88i...
P.S. I also have several thoughts about how profs can help students who are having a hard time with Zoom, esp those who don& #39;t have good Internet -- this is a separate thread, maybe for tomorrow.
