Active collaborative learning in a web conferencing environment

ABSTRACT

Resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 school year has been defined by remote online teaching, taking place in learning management systems and/or in webconference services. Considering this scenario, the aim of this paper is to present teaching strategies for remote synchronous classes in webconference systems so that they are managed in order to encourage greater student engagement, in the perspective of active collaborative learning. The strategies were developed based on the analysis of data generated by the collection of testimonies, the application of questionnaires with teachers of basic education and higher education and the adoption of a class log of the use of three webconference platforms in a postgraduate course, in the current pandemic year. We discuss what changes when it is not possible to teach presentially, but with the use of web conferencing platforms and their functionalities, as well as of different digital tools that can help the teacher stimulate student participation during the lessons. As a result, four types of teaching strategies are presented for the management of remote online classes focused on active collaborative student learning, which can be used by teachers of different educational levels and areas of knowledge.