Introduction to Teaching with Zoom

Madison Salters

• Publisher: Ulysses Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781646041435
• eBook ISBN: 9781646041527
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Classroom Management

A guide to using Zoom's unique video conferencing features to connect with students—and make learning more limitless. Introduction to Teaching with Zoom helps teachers of all grade levels master the basics of communication and education using the Zoom video conferencing service. With step-by-step instructions paired with helpful screenshots, you can learn how to connect with students, record your Zoom meetings, control access to lessons, contribute to live chat streams, and conduct webinars. Zoom newbie? No worries! Madison Salters takes you through the most common Zoom features and terminology. Whether public grade schools have been temporarily closed, or colleges and universities are looking to invest in distance learning, teachers need to be armed and ready to do what they do best no matter the platform. Packed with tips, tricks, troubleshooting, and lesson plans to keep students of all ages engaged, this book is indispensable as the future of teaching continues to evolve.

Part 1 Distance Learning

Digital Distance Learning and the Future of Teaching

The physical classroom space has been expanding for years to incorporate more and more technology as computers and applications become central to the lives of students and professionals, advancing us into the age of digital distance learning. As forbidding as this may seem at first glance, the scope of education has rarely been limited to the classroom: additional readings, homework assignments, hands-on activities, field trips, and out-of-school time that includes clubs, study groups, and after-school classes have long been essential supplementary pillars to well-rounded study. Distance learning, whether a replacement for classroom learning or a supplement to it, offers rich and varied opportunities that teachers may not have access to in a classroom setting.

Distance learning need not be viewed with apprehension. This book guides teachers, students, and parents in best practices for combining distance learning elements with the free video application tool Zoom. For you, the teacher, it will suffuse your syllabus with a broader range of learning methods and tools, whether you are teaching kindergartners or college students, whether your subject is math or music. Far from a crutch used only when school systems are hurting, distance learning via Zoom can make education more limitless than ever before.

One key benefit of distance learning is that, for the first time, teaching no longer need be restricted by time, place, or certain budgetary limitations. Whether you are using distance learning to enhance in-person education or as a fallback for use during snowstorms, pandemics, and utility disasters, it provides a rare space where you have tremendous control over how you present your curricula. Zoom teaching in particular gives instructors an opportunity to flex their creativity, crafting an online space that works best for their subject, driven by more individualized pacing based on their students. It offers better flexibility, originality, and immediate auxiliary resources, like PDFs and online libraries. With the correct road map, distance learning can be the place today’s teachers go to forge the very future of learning—YOU will get to decide, in part, what that future looks like. You are on the frontier.

The first step in mastery is understanding exactly what distance learning is. To do that, let’s contrast it with something the modern classroom is already a little more familiar with: online learning.

The Basics of Distance versus Online Learning

Elements of distance learning were already gaining traction before the COVID-19 pandemic plunged the globe into an emergent need for online classrooms. We can recognize the trend in the advent of online universities and the rising popularity of digitally taught college-level and continuing education courses. Unfortunately, this mode of education has often come with the unfair stigma of “lesser,” even as enrollment has soared thanks to its accessibility, its flexibility, and, often, the lower costs of class materials. Technology is an undeniable fact of life, and distance learning has allowed nations across the globe to give students and young people access to an education in the midst of a pandemic, safeguarding them as well as staff and teachers during the worst of it. The trick to understanding how distance learning can be uniquely supplemental, parallel, or equal to in-person teaching is to understand the pros and cons of distance learning versus online learning, which teachers of K–12 students will be more used to. Online learning has its own set of tactics, which have to be modified or unlearned to approach proper distance learning.

You or your students likely have already been utilizing online learning. Online learning is categorized by the incorporation of technology into the physical classroom and the after-school space: anything from in-class tools like smart boards for teachers, school Wi-Fi, and school-loaned tablets or laptops to prerecorded lecture clips, digital notes and slide shows, school home pages and school-held social media to keep up with events and announcements, teacher email addresses, and even online resources for taking and grading tests and quizzes. Many schools, especially universities, use online forums like SPIRE to keep track of grades and allow students to submit homework digitally and access syllabi—something becoming more common in high schools as well. It’s this high-fi/low-tech mishmash that categorizes online learning: education in a physical space, enhanced by technology.

Distance learning, by contrast, turns that idea completely on its head—it’s purely technological learning, sometimes supplemented by the physical. It offers a completely new experience—think of it as its own genre. The classroom exists entirely in a digitized space, like the Zoom classroom, supported by a virtual library of tools and materials. In contrast to online learning, distance learning can be augmented with nondigital raw materials, such as books, snail-mailed packets (of bulk homework or graded essays, for example, for students who have less access to technology), and hands-on experiences like cooking, jogging, and physical note-taking.

Some other key differences include:

1. 1. Strategy. Online learning treats technology as an auxiliary tool, an alternative style that can be used or discarded without much effect within the lesson. In distance learning, the digital tools are a must, and having everyone learn using the same set of tools will make your classroom more cohesive and collaborative. Proficiency in these tools is expected over time, and new tools may be added as they become available. Students will even learn how to suggest their own, and the addition of new tools will become common and organic in distance learning, whereas they are acquired less quickly and smoothly in online learning, and sometimes only the teacher need be proficient.
2. 2. Collaborative studying. The in-person collaboration of online learning is usually limited to a few hand-raising questions and group work. However, studies show that age groups that work together on problems are more likely to come to correct conclusions and flex critical thinking skills. If done correctly, digital learning can be extremely collaborative. It employs video chats, breakout rooms, private messages, school and individual class message boards, and, often, the online individualized Learning Management System (LMS) of your school. It encourages discussion between peers at a much higher rate than an oft quiet classroom environment might, also encouraging after-class discussion at will—no longer restricted to just the class period or the school day or school environment.

This style of learning has many benefits, which you will discover as you grow used to the tactics discussed in these pages and become comfortable in your own Zoom classroom.

Some key benefits of distance learning include the following:

1. 1. Relevant and relaxed learning. Technology is already such a vital part of students’ out-of-school lives that they may feel more comfortable using a set of tools they are already immersed in, especially since computing will matter so much to their future professional and social lives. Distance learning will help integrate both application use and cloud-based ways of thinking and researching into their daily lives, making these activities feel like second nature to them. And whereas a classroom setting might be difficult and uncomfortable for some students—silent, stifling, requiring constant attention, and sometimes encouraging bullying—a digital learning environment allows students, in many cases, to pick a setting in which they are most comfortable learning and gives them the privacy to occasionally “goof off” in a way that may allow them to refocus. While cyberbullying can be problematic, in many cases students can more readily provide evidence in the form of screenshots and can work with parents and teachers to resolve it.
   While not all students will have access to digital spaces and technology for learning (especially when students have multiple siblings, all learning digitally at the same time of day or using the same computer), in general, students will feel more comfortable at home, at libraries, or in places where they can use the restroom or grab a snack without disturbing the peace or needing permission. They can feel more confident and comfortable as an individual in a distance setting.
2. 2. Enhanced motivation. Students who previously may have felt stifled by classroom curricula can be inspired by subject-specific distance learning methodologies that take their learning a step further by including them in the process. With less time devoted to travel to and from school and busywork, students have a greater opportunity to delve into supplementary course materials (tailoring how they’d like to learn and piquing their excitement for a subject) and to discuss lectures with their peers over videoconferences and group chats. With class activities like cooking or jogging at home, students are empowered by the idea that their out-of-school activities are an authentic and valid way of learning—learning is not restricted to time “in school.” Students who participate in distance learning can be encouraged to take more of a front seat in their journey. The ability to review video lectures, ask questions when they think of them, and access lecture notes at any time will help them become better critical thinkers and more self-led, putting them less “on the clock” and encouraging lifelong learning.
3. 3. Prerecording. At some schools, teachers will have the ability to prerecord some of their lectures and lessons. This can be of great help, since students will be able to access old lectures for review, and students (or teachers!) who fall ill will not be in danger of falling behind. The knowledge that lectures are recorded and presentations and class notes can be emailed, accessed online, or even snail-mailed will lead to students feeling more relaxed and attentive during lectures, being less focused on note-taking, and working at a style and pace that suits them. Prerecording can lead to better individualization of the learning process.
4. 4. Time saving and place-flexible. While distance learning certainly cuts out the commutes, it also has other time-saving features. Online tests, quizzes, and homework questions that are multiple-choice can be automatically graded. Parents who don’t understand elements of lessons or who want to help their kids can now go directly to prerecorded lessons. You do not need to take time off if you have a last-minute trip or emergency that puts you out of the school jurisdiction. You aren’t even restricted by travel time. You can collaborate with classes across the globe, even guest lecture in Beijing, China, at 5:00 p.m. after giving a lesson in Albuquerque, New Mexico, at 3:00 p.m.
5. 5. Expanded accessibility. While it’s certainly true that many districts and homes lack the proper setup for ideal distance learning—maybe there is uncertain, shared, or no Wi-Fi; no laptops, tablets, or smartphones; a lack of printers; the need for kids to share lesson time on the same computer; or homes where kids taking classes at the same time cannot get enough privacy from one another—this can be overcome by reforms that are slowly but surely being enacted with the recent focus on distance learning. Just as school buses, school lunches and breakfasts, and special education and ESL classes were adopted to help uplift education’s most vulnerable, schools and governments are now looking at how they can better fund take-home tech, Wi-Fi hot spots, and more. If this can be implemented effectively, students who fall ill or who have a physical disability or mental illness can find their classes much more accessible than ever before. Students might not be restricted to education based on location, travel time, and funds to travel. If administered correctly and well, with an eye toward righting issues of social inequity, it can make education more merit based and equalizing, no longer restricting students to certain “zones” only, schooling based on tax dollars or zip codes. It can also limit the spread of illness. While parents worry that some tenets of school learning will be lost with distance learning, including child supervision while parents work and hot meals served by schools, many areas have already mobilized to address these issues. While distance learning, again, may not be a full-scale solution in anything short of a pandemic or disaster, for some students, elements of distance learning could make all the difference, even if classroom studies run concurrently. This accessibility idea expands into virtual field trips too, as explained in item 7 on this list.
6. 6. Expanded control and creativity. Distance learning is all about personalization. It’s your approach to education, unburdened; you are in control. It allows you to more heavily tailor to the individual interests and speed of your students. You can create a supporting study material library online, or, if needed, print free PDFs to send via mail. For the first time, this presents an unparalleled opportunity not to “teach to the test” (typically a thorn in educators’ sides) but instead to shape curricula to match the organic learning environment of your class. You can even set up group-share classes with other schools and institutions worldwide, which for the first time makes it easy and free to do linguistic and cultural exchanges and virtual field trips.
7. 7. Virtual field trips. A major dent in school budgets and a focus of fundraising is often school field trips, where districts, students, parents, and teachers face pressure to shell out or raise (by selling to those same districts) enough money to send kids on educational tours. Often limited by budget, those tours are generally restricted to the hyperlocal or are limited to the school’s region. Museums and historical sites are often overcrowded, and keeping an eye on students can be a bit like herding cats. This issue is resolved by distance learning. Museums and culturally important sites worldwide have made their exhibits digital and their online tours free. Cultural societies hold free virtual lectures, talks, and question-and-answer sessions. In every subject, there are myriad “trips” students can take from the comfort of their own home, and they can engage with experts in those locations in a manner they wouldn’t have access to even if they’d visited. Students can also engage in cultural exchanges with other schools in their own country or those abroad—like having a virtual pen pal or a language exchange buddy over Zoom, or working on cross-cultural projects of national and global importance (such as an environmental project on Earth Day). They can engage in problem-solving, enter competitions, and attend supplementary classes at other local schools with other local classes. Tutoring also no longer involves the time and cost of travel. Students can learn from experts and their regional and global peers, creating a closer-knit world by connecting cities, states, and countries.

There’s no doubt that these strong points are helping to drive the popularity of distance learning. As it becomes more in demand, teachers who feel comfortable with these skills will become more highly sought after. Since the trend toward distance learning began in institutes of higher learning and continuing education, we already have some insights about its growing use and popularity to work with. Data and feedback from universities show that some of the most popular distance learning courses are in mass communication and technology—two genres that are heavily entwined with the online medium—but also, less obviously, in hospitality and law, which aren’t as commonly linked to technology, computing, and online integration. It proves that students are willing to branch out, experiment, and craft a new distance learning narrative. If you are teaching children or young adults, this style of learning can help set them up for their digital future. Those who are teaching adults will already see the competitive advantage to this style of teaching, with so many remote and work-from-home options already in place and many companies already having international offices and workforces, often utilizing videoconferencing and collaborative platforms like Monday and Slack. This method of teaching gives them an edge and a he...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Part 1: Distance Learning
• Part 2: Using Zoom
• Part 3: Keeping Students Engaged/Classroom Management
• Part 4: Activities and Sample Lesson Ideas
• About the Author
• Copyright