Guidelines for instructors

In this document we will lay out guidelines for various aspects of teaching online, and have categorized the guidelines keeping in mind the timeline of a workshop.

Setting up prior to workshop

• Designate roles - instructors needed for smooth sailing and the roles are listed below. These roles will rotate among the 3 people during the workshop.
  1. Presenter (Host/co-hosts)
  2. Meeting Moderator (Host/co-hosts) - Host starts the meeting with designated co-host(s). They with full control of the Zoom Meeting to enable muting/unmuting participants, solve any technical problems, create breakout rooms. They will check the chat for questions and inform presenter about pressing questions and answer any questions not passed on to the present in the chat window.
  3. Troubleshooter (Host/co-hosts) - Checks PollEverywhere for questions from participants and is on call to help participants troubleshoot.
• Meeting Host will set up Zoom with the following settings:
  • Do not use personal room ID to start meeting or to share with participants
  • Disable “Join Before Host”
  • Enable and assign co-hosts
  • Disable “File Transfer”
  • Disable “Allow Removed Participants to Rejoin”
  • Mute all participants
  • Set up chat so students can send chats to “Everyone” and “Host”/”Co-host”
  • Allow only host/co-host to share screen
  • In share screen setting, uncheck first box (enter full screen) - suggest that all students to do this.
  • Do not allow participants to record.
  • If using breakout rooms for Troubleshooting, Host role should be assigned to “Troubleshooter”
  • In “play sound when participants join or leave”, check “Heard by host only”
• As a Presenter (or anyone sharing their screens), make sure computer is set up appropriately:
  • Quit all applications that are not required for class, especially if they generate notifications
  • If on a Mac, make sure your dock is hidden, this creates real estate for the windows that you are sharing and is not distracting
  • Use an external mic if possible and make sure it is close to your mouth but away from the keyboard (to the best of your ability)
  • If using an external microphone or speaker, be sure to select that microphone or speaker in Zoom to use.
• All instructors should rename when presenters transition, so that students can clearly identify the “Moderator” and “Troubleshooter” (DM them for help).

First contact with learners

• Go over learner instructions in this repo
• Lead learners through practicing raising their hands
• Inform participants to raise hands if they have a conceptual question for the presenter or to add question to the chat window.
• Inform participants to direct message (DM) the ‘Troubleshooter’ if they need any technical help. Troubleshooter can talk over DM to help resolve, and if necessary (create and) talk in a breakout room (see below).
• For advanced workshops, create breakout rooms (such that each participant is in one room) and instruct everyone to press ‘Later’. Ensure no one joined the breakout rooms, and if they did, let them know that they can exit by clicking on the ‘Leave breakout room’ in the lower right hand corner of the zoom screen.
• Introduce PollEverywhere as the place to ask questions between class sessions and upvote others’ questions
• Display the screen set-up if requiring multiple windows to be open.
  • Examples:
    • Using R with RStudio:
      • Presenter: left-hand half of screen completely from top to bottom with RStudio and right-hand half is materials covering environment and help.
      • Learners: Zoom screen in upper left two-thirds of screen, RStudio in lower right two-thirds of screen, and materials on the right half side behind RStudio.
    • Using shell:
      • Presenter: left-hand half of screen with shell and right-hand half is materials.
      • Learner: left-hand half of screen with shell and right-hand half is materials.

During class

• Presenters
  • Wait for a little longer than usual for learners to respond
  • Don’t worry if you slip up, correct yourself and restart
  • Ask for help from the other instructors and focus on teaching
  • When asking questions of learners, ask learners to either use red and green stickies or raise hands or write in chat window
  • Ask moderator to unmute a learner if requesting a direct answer.
  • Don’t need to stop for raised hands, but can if desired.
  • Make sure the font is big enough to see. In sharing mode, font size tends to be smaller.
  • Possible to use polls between sessions for assessment, but not for in-session assessment.
  • Moderator and troubleshooter may jump in to clarify or add on.
  • Moderator will let you know if there are any chat questions that need to be answered.
  • At transition, stop screen share, and save any shared data (RData) off screen for next presenter to load. Inform next presenter when data is finished saving.
• Moderator
  • Mute and unmute learners as requested by Presenter
  • Monitor for technical difficulties
  • Ask any generally applicable questions in the chat window to presenter at end of session
  • Answer any questions that seem relatively easy in the chat window
  • Watch the “thumbs up” (green stickies) and “thumbs down” (red stickies) icon in the participant list to help presenter assess if they need to re-explain something or slow down.
  • Help the Troubleshooter with questions from class (use your judgement to prioritize this over monitoring) through DMs if needed (not via breakout rooms).
  • Initiate a quick survey after 1st session, and ask students what technical problem they encountered.
  • Take a break at least every one hour
  • Inform class of transitions, and that class will meet back in 5-10 min. Write out in the chat when we will be returning.
• Troubleshooter
  • Watch Zoom Chat or PollEverywhere for questions and categorize them into 2 groups.
    1. If conceptual, encourage them to ask in Chat or raise hand when presenter asks for questions.
    2. Answer technical questions in a DM as asked.
  • Zoom breakout room specifics:
    • If absolutely need to discuss the question with the learner, then creatge and join learner-specific breakout room. Try to resolve by DM first though. Make sure that we solve all questions for each session before moving forward with the next session.
  • Ask Moderator for help if needed
  • Ask Presenter to stop or slow down as needed based on influx of technical questions

Wrapping up

• Finish modified post-class survey