Synchronous Discussions

Overview

Zoom is commonly used to hold live lectures and discussions among the entire class. Zoom can also be used among students to meet and collaborate on a project or study. Within the Zoom interface, there are options to start a poll or put students into breakout rooms. 

 

Scheduling a Zoom Session in Canvas

Video: Scheduling a meeting via Zoom in Canvas

 

Note: You can't hold an instant meeting via Canvas. Instead, schedule a meeting. To hold the scheduled meeting instantly, schedule it for the current time. 

  1. Go to the Canvas course Zoom tool.
  2. Under Upcoming Meetings, click Schedule a New Meeting.
  3. Set the meeting to start now and end one hour after the class ends.
    • You can end class whenever you want. This is to make sure Zoom doesn't stop the meeting before you're done. 
  4. Uncheck Enable join before host.
  5. Click Schedule.

 

Canvas Chatroom

The chatroom is located in the course navigation bar. If you do not see it, you may need to enable it in your course settings Links to an external site.. The chatroom can be used to discuss assignments or just hold virtual office hours.  It is recommended that for more personal questions or concerns that students email the instructor since the chatroom is visible to everyone in the course. Instructors can delete posts as needed. 

chatroom

Image: Canvas course chatroom

 

Best Practices

  • Always communicate your expectations regarding the course activities and the tools that will be used each week. You can address this the first week of class when reviewing your syllabus' course schedule. 
  • Hold virtual office hours using the Chat tool to address general assignment or content questions (it is possible other students have the same questions and it helps maintain presence in the online course).
  • Zoom allows you to break students into smaller groups and have a discussion in these groups. So break students into groups then have everyone rejoin the class Zoom session to discuss their groups responses.
  • Encourage students to use Zoom to meet synchronously with their groups to collaborate with each other.
  • Use Zoom's polling feature to drive the discussion.
  • Use the chatroom to hold virtual office hours for students to pop in and ask questions.
  • You can use the chat feature to facilitate a review session as well.

 

Additional Resources