Providing a Check-In with Students who cannot Attend the Synchronous Lecture

By Jessica Parr, Associate Professor (Teaching) of Chemistry – September 22, 2020

 

For a variety of reasons, not all of our students will be able to attend the synchronous class session. If we were in person and a student did not come to lecture, I would leave the student to study on their own. If that is how they prefer to learn, that is how they will learn. They will not receive full credit for participation, but they are adults and can make their own choices.

Things are a little different now. The reason a student is not able to attend class may be out of their control. They may have Internet connection issues. They may need to help take care of younger siblings, or older family members during class time. Maybe they are taking the class from a time zone where the class is actually taking place in the middle of the night. These students may wish to attend the synchronous session, but are really not able to. These students could easily fall behind and have significant challenges catching up. How do we keep track of our asynchronous students?

I have prepared a series of asynchronous assignments that students are expected to complete before the next synchronous session, if they were not able to attend the synchronous Zoom session for any reason. Since I teach a chemistry class, I assign a handful of problems that they should be able to complete if they absorbed the material from the synchronous session. The students submit them through Blackboard and I grade them on completion. Students will earn the participation points for the day if they complete the assignment on time.

An unexpected benefit of the asynchronous assignments is that students who are able to attend the synchronous Zoom session, prefer to do so. They recognize that it is less work for them to attend the synchronous Zoom session and participate in the breakout groups and poll questions. They are also, hopefully, recognizing that attending the synchronous session is a more enriching educational experience. Eighty-five to ninety-five percent of my students are attending the synchronous Zoom sessions each day. This is a practice that I may continue when we return to in-person instruction.