Engaging Learners through Zoom: Strategies for Virtual Teaching Across Disciplines

by Jonathan Brennan

Keep your virtual students focused and meaningfully engaged with this invaluable teaching resource Engaging Learners through Zoom delivers numerous practical strategies and helpful advice on how to engage students virtually. Many of the tools are also applicable in face-to-face and hybrid environments. Backed by cognitive neuroscience research, this book is a collection of dozens of active, synchronous online learning structures that can be used in any discipline, perfect for middle and high school through higher education. This book provides teachers, college educators, administrators, and trainers the antidote to Zoom fatigue ! Transform Zoom (or any video-conferencing platform) into an ideal environment for students to focus more fully, learn more effectively and have more fun! Dr. Brennan, accomplished author, professor and distance education expert, improves learner performance and addresses equity in education Engaging Learners through Zoom belongs in the collection of every educator who wants to motivate and inspire their students to excel in a virtual learning environment.

Genres: Education, Teaching

144 pages, Paperback

Published October 20, 2020

Reviews

[Robyn Puffenbarger · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lots of tips and tricks with examples. Worth the time to zip through.

[SaraKat · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book reached me at the wrong time. I got it from a training in May, but we aren't supposed to be virtual next year and this year has already wound down. And the portions of the book that go over the basics of Zoom are likely to be out-of-date by next year anyway as software is constantly changing and being updated. I went ahead and read the book to see if any of the engagement strategies were useful for in-person learning and also just in case we are back on Zoom again in the future. I did find several new strategies, but most of them were familiar to me. The authors took time-tested engagement strategies and basically mapped out how to use them on Zoom instead of in the classroom. If you are still Zooming in your school, this would be a good book to peruse.

[George Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

meh, I picked it up for some nuggets for my thesis on distance learning. I can't say that I used it much.

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be best for users relatively new to Zoom. If you are a seasoned user, the only new information is probably using polls and some ideas for including questions or activities (like jigsaw activities) in various courses (i.e. a few lines to a paragraph about a question you could ask in political science or geology, etc.).

[Oks Oriek · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is very insightful book, with a lot of practical examples. I especially liked the chapter on Zoom fatigue explaining that we spend extra energy trying to assess the feelings of others, staying focused etc. And properly designed Zoom breaks are essential part of a virtual learning process.

It is now I truly appreciate how much my daughter’s teacher in elementary school does - trying to engage 28 kids from the other side of the screen. As it’s said: “We need synchronous online class meetings only when they are well designed, engaging, and have a clear purpose.” Otherwise, there is no need to waste the time of the attendees.

Hopefully, I can built in all this advice in my own meetings. I will get back then and give this book an extra star ;)

[Enrique · Rating 2 out of 5]

Flojo con explicaciones tecnicas.

Interesantes:
- los Polls - para mantener el interés
- Los quizes - para hacer repaso activo
- Grupos donde cada uno es experto en algo y se lo explica a los otros - leer, lo preparas con otros expertos, lo preparas solo y se lo explicas a tus compañeros de grupo
- Uso de pizarras para explicar ideas
- Zoom fatige - descansos, levantate, menos camara

Menti, Kahoot, Socrative

[Caroline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Have you been thrust into online training due to covid? This book has a ton of real life applications to make your web workshop more interactive and engaging. Very pragmatic with splices of relevant research findings.