* The Short Version *
- Appearing: Get Dressed, Sit Up, and Show Your Face.
- Hearing: Know How to Hear and Be Heard.
- Seeing: Express Yourself Visually, Too.
- Planning : Set Aside the Time, Arrive on Time, and Stay in Class.
- Solving: Anticipate Technical Problems, and Solve Them.
That’s a quick version. The long version below will help you think more fully about how to handle a virtual class session.
Anticipate Concerns.
If you are a student with disability-related needs that will affect your participation in virtual class sessions, you should begin working with your school’s student support services right away, so that they can help you find solutions. (For Whitworth students, this page contains information that will help you start that process.) The guidelines below may help you anticipate potential barriers to your own participation.
Whitworth Educational Support Services:
https://www.whitworth.edu/cms/administration/educational-support-services/
Participate Well.
To participate well, you need to get ahead of some online / screentime habits we all tend to have these days. If you start to sit back and view your instructors and peers passively, as if they’re just another YouTube clip, stop and adjust your mindset. Make sure you’re actively paying attention to what they’re doing, and that you’re participating in expected ways for the course. On a similar note, be sure to show up on time and stay until you’re dismissed. If tech issues are going to keep you from being in class on a given day, let your instructor know what’s going on, and apologize for your absence.
Show Your Face.
In the best virtual class meetings, the whole class works together to reduce the strange interpersonal distance / separation that online spaces tend to create. Most of the time, your face should appear onscreen during the whole class session, so that you are as fully present in the class meeting as it is possible to be. And your face and shoulders should fill much of your screen. You look truly silly if just the top of your head is showing, or if you’re a tiny head on a big screen, or if you’re a tiny body sitting across the room. Those visual moves create a virtual distance between you and the screen, and that becomes psychological distance between you and the virtual classroom.
Get Dressed and Sit Up.
Not only is it respectful to dress just as well for a virtual class meeting as you would dress for an in-person class meeting, dressing appropriately will also help you get into the proper frame of mind to learn and participate. Similarly, you should, if possible, be sitting up (or standing at a standing desk, if that suits you), not sprawling on a couch or bed. Come to class with the clothing, posture, and all-around demeanor of someone who’s come to learn and participate energetically.
Stay in Class.
Just as you wouldn’t wander in and out of an “in-person” class meeting, don’t wander in and out of a virtual class meeting. Under ordinary circumstances, be prepared to be in class the whole time. If you wouldn’t answer a text or phone call during an on-campus class meeting, don’t do it during a virtual class meeting. In short, unless the situation is so pressing that it would cause you to disrupt and leave an in-person class meeting, it shouldn’t cause you to leave (and disrupt) a virtual class meeting. Your instructor shouldn’t have to work hard to keep track of whether you’re in class or not.
Make Sure You Can Hear and Be Heard.
Classroom learning requires that you be able to comprehend what an instructor is saying and participate in classroom discussions. To help with that, an inexpensive set of headphones with a built-in mic can be a huge asset, in some situations. These will likely also eliminate the audio feedback troubles that sometimes crop up when you listen to a class thorough your computer’s speakers.
Mute Your Sound, Usually.
As a general rule, mute your mic when you enter a video-based meeting.
But Sometimes, Don’t Mute.
If you’re in a small meeting (something like 20 or fewer), there’s no real need to mute yourself the whole time, unless there are lots of loud things happening around you. Or if you’re chewing something, you should probably hit mute. Or mute if your open mic is causing feedback. A bit of background noise, though, as in a real life situation, can be just fine, and can actually help to eliminate the feeling of unreality and disconnection that sometimes creeps into virtual learning spaces. Also, having your mic open means your instructor can hear the kinds of small verbal cues (“whoah!” one of you might say) that help us track class comprehension and energy.
If things get loud where you are, your meeting leader might opt to mute you. Don’t take it personally! Do consider whether you have a way to control the noise around you when you’re participating in a video session. (Your instructors understand that sometimes there are no perfect options. Still, as a “distanced” learner you should be seeking and working to maintain the best environment possible for your own learning. )
Gesture Visually If You Can’t Gesture Audibly.
Learn to give meaningful visual feedback. Be mindful that your face and hands and posture are your key tools for communicating in a virtual class meeting. Watch how other express appreciation or ideas with their hands and faces, and consider adopting some of those moves yourself. Be aware that, perhaps even more than in an in-person class meeting, an always-blank expression leaves your instructor with no way to judge how things are going. That lack of feedback can be dispiriting to your teacher and your classmates both.
Be Aware That We Can See Your Inattention (and Your Attention)
Much as your instructors can gauge your attention (and inattention) in person, they can gauge how well you’re paying attention in virtual spaces. Whether or not your instructors say anything about it, assume they can tell that you’re texting someone. (Be a little paranoid about it, really.) If the person you’re texting is in class with you, assume that your instructor can see that person’s subtle grin when your text arrives. Assume that your instructor can tell you’re paying attention to something other than the class meeting when you’re reading something on the Internet instead of engaging fully with the class meeting. And so on. For the duration of a class meeting, it may be wise for you to close any application that tends to send you notifications and distract you.
If You’re Taking an Online Test, Set Aside the Time.
If you’re doing an online test or assessment of any kind, but especially if you’re doing one that’s timed, be sure you’ve set aside the time and space to do well on it. Let the people around you know that this is a time when you need to concentrate fully, and ask that they respect the space and time, too. This may be the kind of thing that you and your roommates should discuss early and often during the semester.
Take Charge of Your Tech. (And Learn How to Seek Help.)
If you’re enrolled in a course that will have tech requirements, you need to make sure you know what those requirements are, and you need to take responsibility for managing those requirements. It’s okay to run into tech difficulties along the way, of course. These things happen. But having the exact same tech difficulties all semester long is something different. It’s your responsibility, as an aspiring professional, to become the kind of person who can identify problems and find solutions. Rise to that challenge.
Start by looking back at any instructions you’ve been given. If help sites were listed, try using them. Also, if you’re being asked to use applications or tools that are pretty common for your school, see if there’s a help page online for them at the school’s website. (Whitworth has a page like that, here.)
If those resources aren’t helping, ask a classmate. This kind of situation is among the reasons why it’s good to start getting to know a few folks from your course, as soon as possible. If you’re dealing with a digital tool that a lot of people enrolled in your school use, any other student might have some advice.
If you can’t find a classmate or nearby peer who can help, find your computer friend. That is to say: If you’re not great with computers, look to someone in your life who’s better with computers than you are. See if you and that person can work things out (and, if the two of you get it worked out, thank your computer friend well.)
If all those efforts are failing, then reach out to your instructor and explain the situation. The instructor may be able to point you toward help. But notice that this step comes after you’ve made some efforts on your own.
Composed and Maintained by Fred Johnson.