Use Webconferences Judiciously

Overall, I strongly prefer designing my online courses as asynchronous learning experiences. What I mean by "asynchronous" is that students typically do not have to be online at the same time as me--or their colleagues--to engage in learning experiences for the course. While there are benefits for synchronous learning activities (i.e., webconferences such as Zoom meetings,) I believe the benefits for asynchronous learning outweigh these, at least in most instances.

First off, let's talk about time zones. Many of the courses I teach online are in our Master of Education program. I often have students in multiple time zones--often across North America, but increasingly around the globe. (In one course I taught recently, I had students in the US, Canada, Liberia, South Africa, Indonesia, China, and South Korea.) From a purely pragmatic perspective, it's hard to find a good time to have everyone meet up when your students are spread out this way! 

There are ways to address this, of course:

• You could just have one meeting, and record the video for students who are in a time zone where they are likely to be sleeping while you're meeting. I don't like this approach, because it sort of defeats the purpose of a live meeting, if students are only going to watch a video of it after the fact.
• To address that weakness, you could rotate the time of the meeting, so different students would miss the live meeting each time. I would not prefer this approach, personally, because many students are busy people with many other competing interests in their lives. Having a regularly scheduled time to meet so they can plan on it helps make it more likely that they would be able to plan to be there.
• Alternatively, you could plan for multiple meetings held at different times, so everyone could attend a live class meeting. This is great for your students...but less great for you as the instructor, having to manage multiple class meetings. Also, it's a bummer that all of your students can't actually connect and be together at the same time in this way.

Next thing to consider: is a live class meeting really the best way to convey what you want students to learn? Sometimes it is, obviously. Other times, there are equally effective ways--or even more effective ways to help students learn the content than requiring them to all be interacting at the same time. And, let's be honest, is the most important thing about a face-to-face course the fact that you're breathing the same air? I suggest that it's often about efficiency and immediacy. It's much more efficient to have a class with many people attending at the same time. And there is definitely an importance to students getting your input and feedback immediately, which meeting at the same time can obviously facilitate. 

So...what I'm saying is this: it's not that you should never have a synchronous class meeting via web conference. Rather, you should use these kinds of webconferences judiciously. Is there a need for efficiency and immediacy? It might make sense to have a live meeting in this case. But is it more important that students take their time with reading, reflection, writing, creating, etc.? In that case, an asynchronous class might be the better option.

And it's not as if students can't or won't interact with you and each other asynchronously! I've previously written about why I view online discussion forums a power tool for online teaching, and I shared some tips for how to foster authentic conversation those online discussions. In future posts I'll give a few more ideas of alternatives to the synchronous web conference, but for now I'll just say that it's worth asking the question about whether a synchronous web conference is the right pedagogical move for what you're trying to accomplish. 

Image by Chris Montgomery via Unsplash 

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(This post is part of a series offering tips on distance teaching. You can read more about this project here: Distance Teaching Tips. You can also read all of the posts in this series here: Distance Teaching Tips Series.)