This site is for any instructor planning to or currently teaching courses in an interactive videoconferencing environment.

 

Strategies for Engaging Students via Two-Way Video Course Delivery

The IPFW two-way video faculty, Continuing Studies and our Center for Enhanced Learning & Teaching (CELT) had a lively discussion with IUPUI's School of Library & Information Science faculty in January 2007. Daniel Callison, Rachel Applegate, and Katherine Shilling joined us by two-way video for this discussion and shared their experiences. The following notes are from this discussion:

 

How do you increase the level of responsibility for students in a two-way class?

• Ask remote students to learn how to operate and monitor equipment/connections.
• Encourage students to speak up when they cannot see or hear the presenter.
• Students must be more active listeners...review this concept in class.

 

What are the challenges in creating unity in the multiple sites?

• Tendency to think of the "real" site versus remote sites.
• You should use your web-facilitated course management program to create discussions and cohesiveness.
• Instructors should visit remote sites during the course.
• Instructors must work harder to get to know the remote students.

 

How do you adapt a class that typically has a lot of discussion?

• Alternate participation purposefully.
• Use the course management system to manage discussion. This also creates more equality among participants than you might have in a totally face-to-face course.

 

How do you encourage students to use the technology?

• Rewards, rotate responsibilities, practice with new tools that may be job relevant.
• If the instructor visits the remote site(s) at least once per semester, this will help.

 

How can a primarily lecture-delivered course be adapted to two-way delivery?

• You have to avoid lecturing as much as possible and switch to small group work instead.

 

What adjustments should you make to visuals?

• PowerPoint slides don't work well unless you send copies of the presentation to the remote sites ahead of time and allow them to take notes. This might increase the instructor's work load, but it will help maintain equity for all audiences.
• Always post your visuals in the course management system.
• Expect students to review information in the course management system that they cannot see well during class.
• Use recorded video lectures as much as possible.  

 

What other tips can you offer new instructors to two-way?

• Allow students to have as much control as possible (as the technology allows).
• Build in the "wait time" for student responses-- prepare students to interact with questions using other resources.
• Reward discussion in a two-way setting. Combine opportunities to communicate with the course management system and verbal discussion.
• Have students identify themselves with a name tent and location (if more than two sites).
• Provide questions for discussions (in PowerPoint or on the document camera) prior to the start of the discussion. Put up 1-2 questions to consider over the break times, and have small groups prepared to answer and discuss the questions when they return.
• Change instructional activities often...chunk materials into smaller lessons.
• Interject humor into the lectures.

 

What changes have you made to assessment in a two-way classroom?

• Find a way to document participation.
• Increase the participation grade based on the quality of the discussion/feedback, etc.
• Give students multiple opportunities to evaluate the course-- mid-semester and end. Add technical questions to the assessment.
• Revise in-class tests to a series of timed quizzes in the course management system.
• Give students two hours to complete tests at shorter intervals.

 

---

 

What Difference Does the Medium Make?

 

Notes from the Oct. 25 Faculty Dialogue about Teaching with Two-Way Interactive Video

In Attendance--IPFW Faculty: Ben Gates, John Kessler, Karen Moustafa, David Rider, Katie Willock, Richard (History), Worth Weller. Lee Peitzman, Saw Kapaw, LRC. Sandy Schaufelberger, Leslie Raymer, Jenny Shilling, Holly Hartzell, Eric Vitz, Pam Cook, Cheryl Marchetti, Division of Continuing Studies.

 

What are some creative approaches to engaging distance students?

• Have students make a name tent to put in front of them during each class. This helps the instructor learn names and make eye contact with each speaker.
• Put all class materials on WebCT prior to the two-way course so students can print out PowerPoint and other resources to use during class.
• Ask questions for each site to answer…deliberately call on the far site on a regular basis.
• Ask far site students to sit in the front of the room (near camera) so you can see them better.
• One instructor leaves the camera focused on students and not the instructor, so the instructor can roam around the room and interact from the audience perspective to the far site.
• Interactive activities, games, etc. are very useful in engaging students at both sites, but they are problematic when the far site has a small group.

 

What accommodations need made for assessing students?

• First choice: send electronic copy of test to Cheryl and Pam for print and deliver to Warsaw students. 2nd choice: Have hard copies of the exams, quizzes, etc. sent from Warsaw to instructor by IPFW courier. This can be arranged by the support staff in DCS/Credit (Holly and Jenny on this side, Pam and Cheryl at Warsaw)
• Use the fax machine in each distance room for urgent or unplanned exchanges of information.
• Note: A suggestion was made that fax numbers need posted at the instructor station in each distance room for the IPFW sites – Jenny to work with Lee to do.

 

How do you adjust teaching materials for teaching at a distance?

• Convert all presentation materials from overheads to PowerPoint files, and use WebCT to make the PPT files available to all students. It is helpful if PPT files get loaded into WebCT before class.
• Note: The support staff in DCS/Credit can help with scanning materials and converting them to new formats for WebCT.
• Use more visuals when teaching with PowerPoint by two-way video.
• Delete the slide transitions and custom animation from PowerPoint slides to cut down on pixilation during the videoconference.
• Use larger fonts and remember the “6 by 6” rule for designing visuals.

 

What can you do with the Document camera (Elmo)?

• Use the document camera as a whiteboard and send the written images to your far site audience.
• Note: There is plain white paper and markers provided for instructors.
• Use the document camera to show an illustration, map, spreadsheet, etc. to the far site audience. Avoid holding items up to the camera, and use the document camera instead. Practice with the zoom and lighting options to get the clearest image to transmit.
• Use the document camera to signal problems with your far site audience. For instance, it is common practice to create a “We cannot hear you” sign to communicate audio problems!

 

What classroom management tips can you offer?

• Plan on more planning time to prepare for a two-way video course.
• Ask DCS/Credit to intervene if there are any distractions in the far site room.
• Don’t hesitate to call the Warsaw office staff (Pam, Cheryl) for help with far site concerns.
• Make an effort to switch video inputs often when using PowerPoint or any other video source. It’s generally considered good practice to toggle to Instructor View every 5 minutes or less.
• Face-to-face students may get more attention from the instructor than the far site audience, so make an extra effort to connect with far-site students.
• Not every conversation in the classroom needs to be on camera or audible to the far site audience. For example, keep personal questions/discussions with individuals muted.

 

What should an instructor do when there are technical problems?

• Make sure the LRC (Saw or Lee) are notified of the problem, if possible.
• Know how to reconnect a dropped call from the AMX touch screen.
• Use a telephone as a backup when video is lost. Have the phone numbers for the far site readily available.
• Ask a student in the class to help with equipment, watching the far site for concerns, etc.
• Tell students there is a video stream backup of each distance course taught at IPFW. Holly Hartzell is sending the URL to each instructor after a session is recorded, and this can be offered to students who need to see the presentation.
• The help desk at Sensory Technologies has been VERY helpful when called.

 

Technical Questions—

1. Can someone check on audio feedback from the Warsaw speaker phone? Done
2. Add fax numbers for IPFW rooms to a Job Aid sheet at each station. Does Calumet have a fax machine? Done
3. Can a confidence monitor be added in the rooms where the far-site monitor is a long distance from the instructor-- i.e., KT227, G22, etc?
4. Can tabletop mics be added in G22 on the row that doesn’t have them? The student mics are very sparse! Done
5. Does the Warsaw site have far site camera control in FW? Yes
6. Can a standard instructor ‘camera call floor mat’ be installed?
7. Is there any way to send more than one audio source to a far site at the same time?
8. Is there any way to send more than one video source to a far site at the same time? The Tandberg equipment has “dual video” capabilities, but not sure if this option exists on Polycom equipment.

 

Other Comments—

1. This training is very helpful. Participants appreciated the Equipment User Manual that was distributed.
2. Continue offering equipment orientation/training for new faculty just before a semester starts. Could be longer or more in-depth on using the AMX touch screen and peripheral equipment.
3. How can blogs, wikis, podcasting, etc. be used to support distance education? How are other instructors doing this?
4. Keep sharing best practices with this group through ongoing communication.
5. Schedule an equipment orientation before Spring semester.
6. Lunch was very good! Thanks, Jenny.

 

 

 

 

IPFW Tools for IVC Instructors

 

WebCT Vista is available to all IPFW faculty for course management. If you are not familiar with WebCT, you can access faculty tutorials with your IPFW user name and password.

 

The Division of Continuing Studies has created an online student orientation presentation which you can view here. There's also an online distance learning blog.

 

Contact Information Technology Services (ITS) if you have network account or access questions. They also provide training and support of software for faculty. They are located in Kettler Hall, room 206, or by phone at 260-481-6030. You can also visit their website at http://www.its.ipfw.edu.

 

The Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) supports IPFW’s core mission by promoting excellence in teaching and learning and by encouraging the creation and sharing of knowledge. CELT’s multifaceted approach helps faculty achieve individual professional goals, regardless of the individual’s teaching/learning style, employment status, or career phase. At the same time, CELT enhances the teaching and learning environment by providing a single “front door” to the variety of resource providers required in order to teach in today’s classroom.

 

CELT has three major service components: faculty development, support for teaching with technology, and media production. For more information, see their website.

 

Contact the Walter E. Helmke Library for assistance with online resources for teaching and learning. They can be reached at 260-481-6505 or at http://www.lib.ipfw.edu. They also have excellent online resources on several information literacy topics, such as plagiarism, copyright, doing online research, judging website credibility, etc. These and many more resources are found in the How Do I section.

 

 

View My Stats