Teaching Synchronously

What is Synchronous Learning?

Help­ful Matri­ces: Dig­i­tal Learn­ing For­mats – Char­ac­ter­is­tics and Com­po­nents PDF and NIC Deliv­ery For­mats — PDF

What is Syn­chro­nous Learn­ing? Course has required real-time, live online inter­ac­tions and reg­u­lar class con­tact time sched­uled between the instruc­tor and stu­dents most often using a desk­top video/web con­fer­enc­ing plat­form and oth­er dig­i­tal learn­ing tools. Course is char­ac­ter­ized by reg­u­lar and sub­stan­tive dig­i­tal inter­ac­tions between course instruc­tor and stu­dents which occur both in the live class­es and through dig­i­tal con­tent and activ­i­ties. Oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics include:

    • Teach­ing and learn­ing activ­i­ties occur in dig­i­tal for­mats using a vari­ety of learn­ing tech­nolo­gies and dig­i­tal resources.
    • Class focus­es on con­cur­rent, col­lec­tive, and col­lab­o­ra­tive learn­ing amongst stu­dents.
    • Defined dead­lines for com­ple­tion of assign­ments and oth­er course relat­ed activ­i­ties.
    • Stu­dents may have to inter­mit­tent­ly work in groups with oth­er stu­dents or under­take col­lab­o­ra­tive activ­i­ties, but these can be done both in live online ses­sions and offline through oth­er dig­i­tal tools at times that work well for all group mem­bers.
    • Mid-terms, tests, and quizzes includ­ing any final exams will take place dig­i­tal­ly via a vari­ety of for­mats.
    • If a final exam is sched­uled for the course, the exam will take place dig­i­tal­ly on a cer­tain day/time accord­ing to the insti­tu­tion­al exam sched­ule.
    • There may be option­al live, online office hours.
Resources 
  • Syn­chro­nous and Asyn­chro­nous Learn­ing: Two Basic For­mats of Learn­ing in an Online Envi­ron­ment | Cen­tre for Teach­ing and Learn­ing, Con­cor­dia Uni­ver­si­ty
    • Excel­lent web­site out­lin­ing the dif­fer­ences between the two for­mats for teach­ing and learn­ing with easy to fol­low charts.
  • (The Right) Learn­ing Modal­i­ties to Deliv­ery Dig­i­tal Learn­ing: Part 4 (Syn­chro­nous) | Arti­cle by Pat­ti Shank from eLearn­ing Indus­try
    • shares some tips on how to make syn­chro­nous learn­ing work well (imme­di­a­cy and social inter­ac­tion, etc.) and where the lim­i­ta­tions and chal­lenges are with syn­chro­nous
  • Use of cam­eras in Video Con­fer­enc­ing Calls — Prac­tices and Pri­va­cy
    • Dif­fer­ent view­points. 
      • Cam­eras On or Off? Depends! What We’ve Learned from Stu­dents about Teach­ing and Learn­ing on Zoom | Fac­ul­ty Focus Arti­cle (Sept 2022)
      • Cam­eras Be Damned | LinkedIn Arti­cle by Karen Cos­ta (May 2020)
      • About that Web­cam Obses­sion You’re Hav­ing… | Arti­cle Maha Bali (June 2020)
  • Low Band­width or Lim­it­ed Con­nec­tiv­i­ty: Cre­at­ing a More Acces­si­ble Course for Learn­ers: NIC PDF
    • NIC hand­out sum­ma­riz­ing a key arti­cle on con­nec­tiv­i­ty and the issues around live class­es and alter­na­tives