By Cam Kuiper, Dean of Faculty at U-Tech Preparatory Academy & Jenison Innovation Academy, award-winning US online and blended programs
As online educators, we know the importance of dynamic engagement when it comes to student success in our programs. Students who regularly engage within their courses, through positive and collaborative relationships with their instructors and fellow students, are able to both benefit and contribute to a flourishing online learning community. Beyond the instructional design elements of the course itself, live synchronous sessions provide a majority of opportunities for students and staff to work together in creating a flexible and responsive dynamic that best serves the stakeholders.
Preparing for a live synchronous session with students requires pedagogical planning and technological practice. Working through these six steps, and repeating the process in planning the subsequent meeting will benefit all members of the online learning community.
Step 1: Review the Curriculum
Start the process by identifying the course content and learning targets for the week and setting the objectives of the synchronous session for the students. These objectives are likely varied over the duration of the course from introducing a summative unit project to discussing a philosophical theme from a novel students are studying.
Step 2: Review Student Data
With solid instructional design comes scaffolded content and a natural progression of student activity within the course. Observe where students are currently working within the curriculum, as well as individual student engagement with content. Are you seeing a theme on a particular assignment? Have several students reached out for clarification regarding an upcoming essay? These signs will help you discern what to cover in order to best serve your students.
Step 3: Plan & Prepare the Live Session
Prior to the session, using your review of the course content and student data, create a session guide for students to follow along with and take notes, establish any small groups or breakout rooms, prepare a possible pre-assessment or entry task and an informal exit ticket or activity.
Step 4: Deliver the Live Session!
Facilitate student discussion and engage students in formative assessment activities using the previously-created session guide. Go with the flow and don’t feel like you need to be tied to the guide. Meet students and their academic needs as appropriate throughout the live session.
Step 5: Live Session Evaluation
Reflect on student engagement & feedback, while evaluating student understanding of the content covered over the course of the live session. In reviewing the activities and student engagement throughout the session, what concepts or learning objectives need to be retaught or addressed following the session?
Step 6: Responsive Reteaching
After evaluating the live session, decide your next steps. Perhaps a clarification email is in order, as the information is time-sensitive. Maybe a review at the beginning of the next live session will suffice. Differentiate the content, process, or product as you see necessary, and be sure to follow up and provide additional support to students as appropriate.
Then, repeat the process!
Although we understand that live synchronous sessions are a key element in generating responsiveness and flexibility in online course delivery, it can also be the most stressful part of an online instructor’s role, especially when touchpoints are minimal when compared to larger asynchronous components in the course. Developing a routine of cyclical progress monitoring and regular informal formative checkpoints allow online instructors to best prepare for synchronous opportunities, and as a result, best reach their students.
Published as How Can I Best Prepare for Live Synchronous Sessions in an Online Course in Order to Reteach Content and Accelerate Student Learning? in Spark! Issue 28, December 2024
