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Hi lawprof friends, I am seeing a lot of Zoom anxiety in my timeline lately, so for whatever it'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't have to be Fancy to be a good class. If your class IS Fancy I'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's internal camera and microphone. It went fine. In fact I'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't hate Zoom as much as you might think they do. They hate the *pandemic*, and understandably many of them don'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'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
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'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't need a moderator, but during the initial period it gave me several fewer things to think about. 12/
I'll just conclude by saying that the students want the same things on Zoom that they'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't necessarily care about Fancy, see, e.g. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vbj88ib2rjqnp85/AADhOFxZHnkFL9lB9zbaFmsJa?dl=0
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't have good Internet -- this is a separate thread, maybe for tomorrow.
