Planning to Teach Online Checklist

Planning to Teach Online Checklist

Table of Contents
Downloadable Checklist

Preparing to Pivot

  1. Review your syllabus to determine what can be done in the online format and what activities are better rescheduled.
  2. Determine whether you will teach from your office, a teaching studio, your classroom, or home and set up your technical configuration. Digital Solutions (DS) is offering tech consultations and coordinating equipment purchases for setting up your space if teaching from home.
  3. Prepare your space for camera readiness. Choose an area with a neutral background and good lighting that illuminates your face. Position your camera at eye-level and use headphones with a built-in microphone.
  4. Familiarize yourself with key Zoom functionality, such as screen share, chat, recording, and reactions.
  5. Practice with your teaching team to ensure you’ve established your norms and routines. (Tip: Record your practice sessions on Zoom to see how you will appear and sound to students.)

Configuring Zoom Settings

  1. Your faculty assistant has been trained on the recommended approach for scheduling Zoom meetings and will complete this step for you. Use these instructions to grant your FA permission to create Zoom meetings on your behalf. Or see instructions here if you prefer to schedule your own Zoom meetings.
  2. Secure your Zoom sessions from the possibility of “Zoom bombing.” Follow some of these tips for adjusting your meeting settings that Stanford UIT suggests to help manage and protect your meetings from unwelcome Zoom bombers. This article contains some GSB-specific use cases that may help you decide on settings you may wish to activate.

Teaching in the Virtual Space

  1. Build in extra time for logistics such as giving instructions and managing technical functions.
  2. Decide how you will take attendance.
  3. To combat “Zoom fatigue,” minimize time that students must be on Zoom, if possible, and build in breaks for longer Zoom sessions. Even a 30-second break for students to stand up and walk around every half hour can help maintain engagement — and help you keep up your energy during class.
  4. Use Breakout Rooms and Zoom Participant Engagement Tools (chat, polling, etc.) to engage with students and break up your Zoom lecture sessions.
  5. Create variation in the ways you teach and the ways students interact with the material. E.g., Use cold calls or warm calls to prevent students from being distracted by phones, email, etc.

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