During Baruch’s emergency transition to online learning, the Writing Center joined other units in the Division for Teaching and Learning to help faculty prepare to teach online. This resource was originally created in April 2020 to respond to commonly-asked questions about online teaching.

Common Pedagogy Questions

How do I teach a class where many students are dealing with grief, illness, housing insecurity, unemployment, etc.?

• Let students know that you’ll be flexible, and that you understand no one can do their best work in a crisis. Encourage them to use campus counseling services. 
• Look for places you can cut units, readings, or assignments from your syllabus. Where possible, focus on “learning outcomes”—what you’d ideally like students to demonstrate they understand or can do by the end of the semester—rather than on coverage. 
• When designing assignments, assume that students might not be available for regular communication or immediate response. Develop longer-term, exploratory projects that allow students to jump back in after periods of absence. 
• Revise your grading policy—especially any strict attendance requirements or penalties for late work—to be more flexible. 

How do I teach asynchronously? 

• Hold virtual, group office hours during your usually-scheduled class time, and/or use those dates as deadlines. 
• Turn the informal work students would have done in-class into an ungraded assignment with a week or so to complete. 
• Have (all or some) students draft discussion questions in response to assigned readings, and ask other students to answer.
• Make a list of the most important elements of your typical in-class session, and try to replace them with ways students can engage at any time of day. For example: 
  • In-class discussion →  Create a Blackboard discussion board
  • Answering questions to the full group →  Answer all questions in a publicly-shared document. Alternately, create a document or forum where students can also answer their classmates’ questions.
  • Checking for understanding → Short, ungraded writing prompts designed to give students a chance to demonstrate mastery of key concepts. Use the results to decide what to prioritize and clarify the following week. 
  • Peer review → Assign class pairs or small groups (see below for strategies)

How do I ensure that my assignments are as easy to read and understand as possible? 

• Include all relevant information on your assignment sheet 
  • Make your assignment sheet (or Blackboard assignment screen) as comprehensive as possible, so that students don’t need to search back through the syllabus or other places on Blackboard for additional details like due dates or formatting expectations
  • Some useful things to include on your assignment sheet include:
    • A clear title identifying the course, instructor, and assignment title
    • The due date
    • The context framing the assignment
    • A clearly stated question or prompt
    • A list of sources or evidence to consult
    • A schedule of important assignment dates
    • Your assessment criteria or rubric (as relevant)
    • Directions for submitting the assignment
• Provide context for your assignment
  • Clarify which texts, theoretical frameworks, or problems you want students to engage with for this assignment, or what concepts, readings, or tools they should keep in mind.
• Clearly identify the exact question or questions students should address
  • Make it visually clear where your main question or prompt is located on the page by indenting, bolding, or using a text box. 
  • If you ask multiple questions, clarify whether you expect students to answer all of them or whether you are simply trying to prompt their thinking.
• Clearly identify the parameters and requirements of the assignment
  • Ensure that this document could stand on its own without additional clarification. You might try asking a colleague, friend, or family member to read it and explain their interpretation of the assignment. 
  • Consider describing the steps that students might take while approaching the assignment
• Identify the resources that students can/should use while answering
  • Describe and include links for how students can find relevant resources (A folder on Blackboard? A web resource? JSTOR?). 
  • Describe and include links for how students can find help with this assignment (Emailing you? Visiting the Writing Center? Working with classmates, as long as they develop independent answers?)
• Review your use of language and formatting
  • Try to find and remove any idioms that may be unclear for English Language Learners (ex. “cut to the chase,” “up in the air,” “hit the books”). 
  • Try using strategic formatting to clarify your instructions:
    • Label your assignment
    • Use a clear heading structure
    • Make important numbers stand out (ex. you will need to use THREE scholarly articles to support your argument)
    • Make important action verbs stand out (ex. First, summarize the article. Then analyze the decisions made by the Westfield Corporation). 

How do I encourage students to participate, if I cannot require they use video/audio?

• Use breakout rooms: students are often much more willing to voluntarily turn on their cameras and mics in small groups, where any background noise or movement is less public.
• Create a blank, live document for students to collectively take notes:  using Google/OneDrive or any cloud-based editable document, set it so that anyone with the link has edit access. Paste the link in the chat, and have students all take notes in the same live document. This is especially useful for keeping track of which breakout rooms are actively working, without having to enter each room and interrupt. It also provides a written archive of the class discussion for those who missed the session.
• Use the “chat” feature: this allows students to add their ideas and questions without unmuting themselves. You might take attendance, for example, by asking everyone to answer a question in the chat.

How do I modify my exams/assignments to work in an online context? 

• Alternative for a final, high stakes exam: 
  • A portfolio where students document their independent work
• Alternatives for timed, multiple-choice, in-class tests: 
  • Assign a written response (ex. a memo, an annotated bibliography, a presentation, a case analysis, etc.) that asks students to demonstrate mastery of the same concepts you typically assess via the timed test. 
  • Turn the test into a rubric that you share with the class (and that you—or their peers—can use to evaluate the written response). 
  • Alternately, you might share the test itself—untimed—and encourage students to use outside resources. Have them document the sources they consulted to find the answers. 
• Alternatives for in-class presentations: 
  • Have students present in small groups—either in writing, via video-conference, or via uploaded recorded video/audio. Give them a guide for responding to / assessing each others’ presentations, and have them submit these responses to you after they “meet.” 

How do I ensure academic integrity? 

• Design assignments that encourage the use of outside resources and support, rather than trying to monitor students from a distance. 
• Ask students to include reflective letters with their work that describe their process. 
• Write assignments that ensure students will produce distinct work (i.e., applying concepts rather than defining them). 
• To teach students the skills necessary to cite appropriately, you might use our online workshop lesson plan for “Understanding Plagiarism and Citation.”

I’m worried that teaching online will produce even more work for me to grade. How do I manage workload while still making sure students get feedback? 

• Prioritize where/when you spend your grading time and effort
  • Focus your feedback on drafts, when students have a chance to revise based on your comments. 
  • For final papers/reports/presentations, consider grading with a rubric and only providing tailored feedback on request. 
• Encourage students to ‘write to learn’
  • Remember that not all work needs to be assessed—students often learn more from writing itself than they do from receiving feedback on their work.
  • Use informal assignments for asynchronous “attendance” or “participation” grades: have students draft discussion questions, essay prompts, or responses to readings / each others’ work as a way of showing you they’re engaging in the course. Check off whether the work is completed, rather than responding to it. 
• Use peer review
  • When students learn to respond effectively to each other’s writing, they also get better at assessing their own work. Some strategies for peer review: 
  • Have students write letters or questions about the kind of help they need on their drafts.   
  • Discourage proofreading, direct editing, or a focus on error. Instead, have peer reviewers answer questions like “What did you want to know more about?” “Where were you confused?” “Where could the writer expand?” Have students apply the same strategies to their own work once they are done reading each others’.
• Try asynchronous peer review
  • Break students into pairs and have them exchange papers by email, Office 365, google, or Blackboard. 
  • Ask students to write a brief explanation of how they applied peer feedback while they revised. They can turn this in with their final draft. 
• Try synchronous peer review
  • Screen share one student’s paper and have the full class brainstorm revision strategies together
  • Select excerpts from a variety of student papers, and use a shared document to revise them all as a class
  • Create “breakout rooms” in Zoom and have students peer review in pairs or small-groups
  • Have students meet in pairs via Google docs
• Sample rubric for peer review: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rx0znx8fd2uhh4p/Sample%20rubric.pdf?dl=0
• Peer review lesson plan: https://writingcenter.baruch.cuny.edu/files/2015/08/workshop_peer_review.pdf

How should I support students in my classes who are working to improve their English language skills? 

• Depending on their comfort with written and oral communication, English Language Learners might find online-only classes more labor intensive. 
• Keep in mind that informal online class participation replaces the kind of in-class conversation we don’t typically grade: don’t expect students to write error-free responses on discussion boards.
• Research in applied linguistics suggests that we learn languages best when we have a real motivation to communicate in them. Every time you write an engaging assignment, you’re promoting students’ language acquisition. Focus on creating these opportunities for students to learn new language, rather than on correcting usage errors. 

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Common Technology Questions

How do I record my class and share it with students who aren’t able to attend synchronously? 

1. To enable recording, log into your Zoom account and select Settings from the left menu. Then, select the Recording tab from the top menu.

1. In the Recording tab, select your preferred recording location and recording layout. 

• Local recording allows you to record the meeting as a file on your computer. 
• Cloud recording allows you to record the meeting to “the cloud,” meaning that the video file is saved and hosted inside your Zoom account. 

1. Hold your class session or meeting and record the meeting using the Record button at the bottom of your meeting window. Note that you should remind students that the session is being recorded and give them the option of turning off their camera. 
2. After your session, locate your video recording and share with your students.

• If you choose local recording, your video file will be saved in Zoom’s default download folder (which you can change here). You can then upload the video file to Blackboard or potentially attach via email (depending on file size).
• If you choose cloud recording, Zoom will send you (the host) an email to let you know when the video file is available on the cloud. You can access your cloud recording by logging into your Zoom account and selecting Recordings on the lefthand menu. You will then have the option of downloading the video file to your computer to post to Blackboard or generating a link that will allow students to stream the video online.

What advice do you have for someone teaching with Zoom for the first time? 

• Carefully plan out the first five minutes of each class to set the tone for the entire session
  • What will your students see when they log in? (a shared agenda, a screenshared Powerpoint, a waitscreen, your smiling face) What will they hear? (small-talking classmates, muted classmates, you, music?) What will they do? (talk to you, sign in using chat, answer a prompt?)
• Display a visual agenda each session to provide a clear structure for the class meeting
  • Using screenshare, chat, or whiteboard, type out an agenda for the session, including any main sections or activities you plan to do 
  • Refer back to this agenda as you move between agenda items so that students can track the progress of the session
• Type out your discussion questions and instructions for clarity
  • When asking students to answer questions or do activities, consider typing out your questions and instructions on your Powerpoint or shared document so that students have multiple ways to access and respond to the task
• Think through the types of interactions you want students to have over Zoom over the course of the semester and find a way to practice those kinds of interactions on Day 1
  • For example, if you want students to use chat, polling, breakout groups, on your first day, have them sign in using the chat bar, give a quick poll about where they are calling in from that day, and send them into breakout rooms to discuss the course syllabus for 5 minutes
• Develop a contingency plan for technology failures 
  • Assume that all technology will fail on the first day and make a plan for how you will get this course material to the (many) students who have connection issues or who can only participate via chat or voice. 
  • Think about what materials you could circulate in advance to scaffold your class, including Powerpoints, notes, data sets, or readings.
• Set up your physical and digital workspace for success
  • Take stock of your physical space. Can you move your computer so the light in front of you rather than behind you? Can you minimize any background noise (or can you find a pair of cheap earbuds with a built-in microphone)?
  • Gather any potentially useful supplies near your computer station before you teach, including notes, water glass, headphones, computer charger.
  • Before you start class, double check your Zoom settings and refine if necessary. You may find that your preferred settings shift over a semester as you allow or restrict certain Zoom features.
  • Test your camera, speakers, and microphone before the start of each class.
  • Close all browser windows and programs that you aren’t using during the session
  • Mute your phone and (especially!) any desktop push notifications
  • If you plan to share your whole desktop, make sure that your desktop contains only things that you want students to see.

I’m just using Zoom to broadcast my lecture. How can I set up a webinar rather than a meeting?

• Baruch’s Zoom license does not include Webinars, so if you want to use Zoom to communicate with your students, you will need to do so through the Meetings function. 
• In practice, you can recreate a webinar-style meeting by turning off some of Zoom’s interactive features in your Settings menu, such as participant video, file transfer, screen sharing, and breakout rooms. You can also hide non-video users or manipulate the layout in other ways to highlight your own video tile. 
• However, if you simply plan to lecture without student interaction, you should consider pre-recording/posting your lectures and allowing students to view them asynchronously at the time that works best for their schedules. 

I want to stream a video clip/ song during my class. How do I set up Zoom so that students are able to hear what I hear?

1. From your Zoom meeting, click Share Screen. In the Share Screen menu, click Screen to share your whole desktop or select the specific application containing the video/audio you want to share. 
2. Click Share computer sound in the bottom left of the Share Screen menu and then click the blue Share button in the bottom right corner.  

When I share my screen, do students see my whole computer or just my Powerpoint/ Word Doc/ Internet browser?

Depending on your settings, students can either see your entire desktop or you can limit their view to only one program. You can make this decision from the Share Screen menu each time you choose to share your screen: 

1. From your Zoom meeting, click on Share Screen to open the Share Screen menu.
2. Choose what would like students to see on your computer:
   • If you want students to be able to view your entire desktop as you see it, select the “Screen” icon on the top row (highlighted in red below). Essentially, students will see what you see as you move between different programs or documents on your computer. 
     • Pros: You can move quickly between applications (ex. from a Powerpoint to a webpage)
     • Cons: Students can see your desktop or any personal files that are visible on the screen; students can see any desktop notifications that pop up (ex. Outlook push notifications with email previews); it can be visually distracting if you have multiple files or programs open and running
   • If you want to limit students’ view to only one specific program, choose any program from the bottom row (highlighted in green below). This means that if you share Word, students will continue to see the Word program, even if you have clicked over to the internet or another part of your computer. If you want to switch applications from Word to something else, you can click New Share (or  click Stop Share and then re-click Share Screen) to restart the sharing process with your desired program.