“Remote Gathering Quality Practices - Application Ideas,” Developing as an Online Teacher (2023)
“Remote Gathering Quality Practices - Application Ideas,” Developing as an Online Teacher
Remote Gathering Quality Practices - Application Ideas
Now that you’ve had a chance to explore the principles of remote online teaching by studying the Overview of Christlike Teaching, you will now explore quality remote gathering practices. Many of these are ideas that you can start applying to your remote gathering immediately. Students often engage in remote gatherings in three different ways. They engage with:
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Fellow students.
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The teacher.
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The content, either content in Canvas or content shared during the remote gathering.
As you begin exploring these different ways students engage in a remote gathering, consider the following questions:
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Which of these practices can I see myself incorporating right away?
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Which of these practices do I need help with? I need to ask for help from my local S&I supervisor, because they look like I should be doing them.
Student-to-Student Interaction
Breakout Rooms
Imagine you are a seminary or institute student in a traditional classroom, and the teacher stops for a moment and transitions to a different activity. She says, “All right, everybody! I’m breaking you up into groups of four. Find a corner of the room, and circle up. I want you to take eight to ten minutes and discuss the following question from today’s material:
“‘How can we reach out to people in Christlike ways when we see a need and don’t know what to say?’
“I’ll be dropping into your groups to see how the discussion is going! Then we’ll come back together and share what each group discussed and learned.”
This kind of activity can happen in remote gatherings as well. Most remote gathering software offers a breakout room feature that allows the class to be broken up into smaller groups.
Breakout Room Benefits
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Breakout rooms encourage quieter students to participate when there are fewer people. These students may not feel as intimidated in smaller group settings.
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Some students will be more open with their comments because they are with peers, not being observed by a teacher.
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Breakout rooms can help students get to know each other more personally in a smaller group setting.
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Having a new or different instructional event in the discussion helps to reengage or maintain student interest.
Optional Breakout Room Zoom Help Guides
If your online class or program uses Zoom as its remote gathering tool, here are some Zoom help guides to get you started with breakout rooms. If your online class or program uses a different remote gathering tool, reach out to your local S&I representative for some help on how to set up breakout rooms.
*The Zoom help guides are available in multiple languages. Once inside a Zoom help guide, scroll down to the bottom of the page to select the “Language” drop-down menu and choose the appropriate language.
Enabling Zoom Breakout Rooms—Scroll down to the “User” instructions.
(Zoom Breakout Room Tutorial—English, closed captioning)
Student-to-Teacher Interaction
Chat Function
If you would like to incorporate time for students to ponder during the discussion, the chat feature can facilitate this pondering time well. In this example, the teacher puts in the chat the following prompt:
“Take 5 to 7 minutes and ponder the following.
“From this week’s scripture reading—Matthew 8; Mark 2–4; and Luke 7—consider this:
“If these were the only pieces of scripture in the whole world, what is one thing they teach you about the Savior, Jesus Christ? When you’re ready, type your thoughts in this chat.”
Chat Function Benefits
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This can allow students some time to ponder questions, study the scriptures, and focus their reply, articulating a thoughtful response.
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The chat can also be a good way to involve those less inclined to raise their hand and speak during a gathering.
Optional Zoom Chat Help Guides
If your online class or program uses Zoom as its remote gathering tool, here are some Zoom help guides to get you started with the chat feature. If your online class or program uses a different remote gathering tool, reach out to your local S&I representative for some help on how to get started with the chat feature.
*The Zoom Help Guides are available in multiple languages. Once inside a Zoom Help Guide, scroll down to the bottom of the page to select the “Language” drop down menu and choose the appropriate language.
Student-to-Content Interaction
In-Meeting Whiteboard Collaboration
The Whiteboard tool can be an excellent way for your students to collaborate when studying the scriptures. Imagine you have an activity where you want to have the students analyze a passage of scripture together. Once your remote gathering meeting has started, you start the Whiteboard tool. You then copy and paste the scripture text into the whiteboard so that everybody can see it. You give your students the following instruction:
“We’re going to be analyzing this scripture passage together. Let’s break up into pairs. I have a few identification tasks I want each pair to do.
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First, identify the subject of the scripture. Who is being spoken to? Highlight the word or words of the subject in yellow.
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Next, identify the principle taught in the scripture. Highlight this in green.
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Finally, identify the invitation given for you and me. Highlight this in red.
“I’ll give you five minutes to prepare your answers. Then I’ll call on three pairs to share their highlights and the reason why they selected what they did.”
See how the virtual whiteboard functions like an in-class whiteboard? Activities where the teacher invites students up to the whiteboard can be done similarly with a virtual whiteboard.
Optional Whiteboard Zoom Help Guide
If your online class or program uses Zoom as its remote gathering tool, here are some Zoom help guides to get you started with the Whiteboard tool. If your online class or program uses a different remote gathering tool, reach out to your local S&I representative for some help on how to get started with the Whiteboard feature.
*The Zoom help guides are available in multiple languages. Once inside a Zoom help guide, scroll down to the bottom of the page to select the “Language” drop-down menu and choose the appropriate language.
Discuss with Your Supervisor
Ponder the following items and how they might apply to your teaching. Prepare to discuss these questions with your local Seminaries and Institutes of Religion (S&I) supervisor:
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Ask which of these different practices your supervisor would recommend you start right away and why.
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Ask which practices your supervisor has seen work well and why they believe those practices work well.
Want More Ideas?
Student-to-Student Practices
Chat Function
As a teacher, you can encourage your students during a moment of reflection to interact with each other in the chat function. For example, imagine the following teaching interaction:
“All right, class. This has been a great discussion! I want to continue the discussion but do so in the chat instead of over our microphones. Take some time to ponder a response to the following question:
“After pondering the parables in Matthew 13 and Luke 13, what do you feel inspired to do to participate more fully in the work of Christ’s latter-day Church?
“I’ll paste this question in the chat, and I’ll give you six minutes to write your thoughts. After you’ve posted in the chat, take some time to reply to a classmate’s thoughts. Maybe ask a question to clarify or thank them for clarifying a question you had. Have fun with this!”
Out-of-Class Community Interactions
Depending on the makeup of your class, it might be beneficial for your students to set up their own community outside of Canvas or the remote gathering. For example, some students may want to chat with and support each other in ways outside of the class experience. They might set up a WhatsApp group or a Facebook group where they can talk with each other in a less formal setting. Students can draw great strength when they feel like they belong to a community, and sometimes this can work well with groups they form outside of class.
Student-to-Teacher Practices
Chat Function
Most remote gathering software chat features let the teacher reach out to individual students privately. For example, imagine that you have told the class to ponder silently for five minutes their answers to a question that you posted in the chat. During this time, you could reach out to an individual student and be a soundboard for them as they work through their answer before posting to the class. Or perhaps during the opening exercises of the remote gathering, you noticed one student seemed distracted or sullen. You could use this tool to message them privately to try to minister to them.
A question to consider: How might you encourage your students to reach out to you using the chat feature during the remote gathering?
Student-to-Content Practices
Synchronous/Asynchronous Document Collaboration
Imagine that you are a teacher in a traditional classroom, and at the front and sides of the classroom you have several whiteboards on which to write and draw. You have designed a group activity where you will divide the class into three groups. Each group will read the same scripture passage, but they will highlight different passage features:
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Group 1: The doctrines mentioned
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Group 2: The words of the Savior
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Group 3: Invitations to the reader or to the subjects of the passage
This type of activity is possible in a remote gathering too. Consider using a Google Doc, Microsoft Word Online document, or similar kind of online document collaboration tool. If you prepare the document with the scripture passage already pasted in it and the group assignments listed at the top, all you have to do is drop the link to the document in the chat and give students a time limit.
In-Meeting Polls or Quizzes
Have you ever been in a class where the teacher said, “By raise of hands, how many of you have …?” This is called a flash poll, where a teacher is trying to get a quick assessment of students’ thoughts or feelings on a topic. The same thing can be done in a remote gathering. Most remote gathering software has a feature where a teacher can set up a quick poll or a quiz to do just that.