Best practices for building faculty presence and student engagement

At first, the pandemic caught the world off-guard, and then the rate of change to innovate did not give many the time needed to adapt. With physical distance added to the equation of the new normal, higher education might never look the same again. For many of us, this means teaching through a new medium, higher dependence on technology, delivering live lectures to students who hide behind turned-off cameras, decreased participation, and higher performance anxiety. The new normal makes us wonder how to lead our students during these unprecedented times;how to create an active faculty presence in the courses that we teach remotely or online;and how to build student engagement without adding to the performance anxiety. This chapter aims to answer all these questions considering the practices that have repeatedly helped me establish my presence and outstanding student engagement during these unprecedented times of COVID-19. These involve the use of audio visual tools, breakout rooms, short lectures, content update, classroom games, social media and faculty branding. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021. All rights reserved.

Virtual pedagogy: design and delivery of an eWorkshop on PA under COVID-19 restrictions

COVID-19 disruptions have driven precision agriculture (PA) education to online modes of teaching. An introductory eWorkshop on precision agriculture was designed and delivered as part of a thirdyear agronomy subject for undergraduate students studying the Bachelor of Agriculture course at the University of Melbourne. The main objectives were to: (1) establish basic understandings about PA techniques;(2) demonstrate how PA can improve agricultural productivity and sustainability;(3) link PA to key agronomy concepts (viz. to soil and crop characteristics and their spatio-temporal variability);and (4) encourage further study in PA. Designed for student-centred active and collaborative learning this three-hour workshop used Google Earth to involve students in examining and discussing ECa maps, Sentinel-derived NDVI maps and yield maps. Zoom videoconferencing platform (integrating the 'Breakout rooms' function) was used as the online teaching and student collaboration environment.

Problems and Solutions for Teaching Graphic Subjects Online

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, schools and universities around the world are moving to online learning. Various technologies and techniques have been invented around the world, but they do not solve simple problems such as task logistics between teacher and student. There is a large non-creative additional work load. The article discusses the problems encountered in teaching graphic subjects online and the tools and techniques that can be used. Breakout rooms in ZOOM have been found as a good option for practical work in engineering graphics. The aim of the article is to describe the experience gained in teaching engineering graphics online in the spring and autumn semesters of 2020, as well as to analyse the results of the survey at the end of the year.

IT HAS POTENTIAL BUT… ‘ - EXPLORING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ EXPERIENCES AND PERCEPTIONS OF BREAKOUT ROOMS DURING THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

COVID-19 has created a dramatic and rapid transition to emergency remote teaching in higher education (HE) creating both new opportunities and challenges for lecturers and their students. As HE adapts to these new circumstances, there is a need for instructors to design and teach classes that support collaborative learning and increase opportunities for student interactivity. This article reports on an ongoing study exploring university students' experiences and perceptions of using breakout rooms (BRs), a technical feature of many synchronous online platforms, as part of their online classes. Using a mixed methods research approach, 127 students, who were registered on English language courses at a university in Cyprus during Spring 2021, participated in the study. Findings indicate that students' experiences and perceptions of breakout rooms during this period were impacted in five key areas: (1) emotional/affective, (2) moral/ethical, (3) social, (4) pedagogical and (5) technological. These findings suggest that students' personal feelings, attitudes to online learning, sense of connectedness to their peers, expectations of the role and presence of the lecturer and issues relating to the technology, are all considered to be significant factors in their use of BRs. This study offers initial insights for educators who wish to use, modify and/or adapt synchronous online teaching to incorporate collaborative learning opportunities through breakout rooms. © 2022. All Rights Reserved.

Enriching and Energizing the Virtual Classroom using Breakout Sessions: A better experience of Active Learning during Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has impacted educational institutes all over the World. As teachers and students adapt to the new normal, Zoom, Google meet, Microsoft teams, or Cisco WebEx have become the most sought-after platforms for distance learning. The challenge for teachers and students in online learning is active peer engagement. To encourage problem-based learning, online platforms allow the creation of breakout rooms. Breakout rooms are private chat rooms where small groups of 3-4 students discuss unique problem statements allocated to them and employ peer learning methods through interpersonal communication. Teachers or facilitators enrich the knowledge of the students in active learning sessions. This research paper dives deep into the benefits, drawbacks, and implications of breakout rooms in E-learning environments. It is a collective case study on the use of breakout rooms by students and facilitators at an elite engineering college in Maharashtra, India. The first-hand experience of undergraduate Computer Science students and their Database Management Systems teacher is being considered. Student recommendations on use of breakout rooms have been consolidated at the end of this paper. Through our analysis and encouraging statistics, we wish to advocate the use of breakout rooms to engage students, in online learning platforms. © 2022, Rajarambapu Institute Of Technology. All rights reserved.

Experience Report on the Use of Breakout Rooms in a Large Online Course

In this paper, we present our experience with the use of breakout rooms in a second year undergraduate Software Design course at a large North American institution. Following the switch to remote instruction during the coronavirus pandemic, we revamped our in-person Software Design course to be delivered as a flipped online course, making extensive use of in-lecture exercises completed during breakout rooms. We report on the structure and logistics of this lecture design (for a large class of 300+ students). To gain insights into the impact of the use of breakout rooms on student experience, we conducted weekly student surveys asking for feedback on the lectures and specifically on the use of breakout rooms. Although many students had positive feelings regarding the use of breakout rooms, a significant percentage of students (an average of 47% of the survey responses each week) expressed negative feelings toward them. In an end-of-term survey, we specifically asked students about what they felt worked best for breakout rooms in terms of group size and pre-assigned versus randomized groups, and if there were any other areas that they felt needed improvement. Some of the patterns we observed were that most students liked smaller groups (2-5 people), preferred staying in the same group throughout the semester, and enjoyed the use of breakout rooms as long as others in their room were active participants. We share the details of these survey results as well as the tips and lessons that we learned through this experience. © 2022 ACM.