After more than 20 years in the classroom, I figured I had seen every version of instruction possible. But digging into these readings about synchronous online facilitation opened up some ideas I hadn’t considered… especially in terms of structure, presence, and intentional design.
I was surprised by how BCcampus frames skills like cultural intelligence and reading digital cues as formal competencies. Because I was a teacher for over 20 years, those felt like instinctive parts of classroom management… noticing body language, managing attention, adjusting tone. But in the online world, that intuition has to be translated into virtual fluency and seeing it recognized as a skill set for synchronous facilitation made me rethink how I show up in Zoom (BCcampus, n.d.).
Sometimes I forget how powerful a framework can be until I see it used in a practical way. This is an interesting point about how the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository (TOPR) aligns its synchronous lesson planning examples with the Community of Inquiry (CoI) model. I had never thought about designing a session where each check-in or breakout room activity supports social, cognitive, or teaching presence. I wonder how this point could apply to our team’s synchronous session… Could we intentionally tag each activity in our plan to hit all three types of presence? (Samuel, Guadagno, & Tovar, 2021).
Acosta-Tello’s suggestion to waive a discussion post if a student attends the live session stood out to me. It’s not a deep pedagogical maneuver… but it’s practical and motivational. Sometimes a well-placed incentive like that is all it takes to get students to show up (Acosta-Tello, 2015). I appreciate strategies that acknowledge student workload without compromising learning.
The suggestion to keep sessions to 60–75 minutes with built-in time for Q&A is a good design tip I want to hang onto. Lectures are usually longer in professional development or post-secondary settings, but that doesn’t always serve engagement. Designing tighter, more focused live sessions might make them more interactive and less fatiguing for everyone (BCcampus, n.d.). In the past, I taught for 2 hours online; giving them a 15 minute break in between was the only way to circumvent fatigue.
I appreciated the reminder that synchronous sessions should be content-light but interaction-heavy, but easier said than done sometimes! The idea is to avoid just replicating a lecture, which I don’t generally do, but when teaching ELLs, getting them to talk can be a Herculean effort. I like the idea of pre-recording the heavy content and use live time for questions, practice, and discussion (BCcampus, n.d.). That shift is big. I guess it’s just a matter of putting into practice.
References
Acosta-Tello, E. (2015). Enhancing the online class: Effective use of synchronous interactive online instruction. Journal of Instructional Pedagogies, 17, 1–7. https://www.aabri.com/jip.html
BCcampus. (n.d.). Designing. In Facilitating learning online (FLO) synchronous. https://opentextbc.ca
BCcampus. (n.d.). Facilitating. In Facilitating learning online (FLO) synchronous. https://opentextbc.ca
BCcampus. (n.d.). Planning. In Facilitating learning online (FLO) synchronous. https://opentextbc.ca
BCcampus. (n.d.). Synchronous online learning. In Facilitating learning online (FLO) synchronous. https://opentextbc.ca
Samuel, C., Guadagno, A., & Tovar, M. (2021). Promoting interaction and engagement in synchronous classes: Four examples. In A. deNoyelles, A. Albrecht, S. Bauer, & S. Wyatt (Eds.), Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository. University of Central Florida Center for Distributed Learning. https://topr.online.ucf.edu/promoting-interaction-and-engagement-in-synchronous-classes-four-examples/