As the semester is upon us, being prepared to teach on Zoom is essential. The synchronous time you spend in Zoom with your students should be reconsidered to provide the best learning experience possible. We encourage you to do so! This week we hosted our first Teach Talk webinar for the Fall 2020 semester, presented by School of Life Sciences Instructional Designers, Lenora Ott and Sarah Prosory .  We discussed the process of teaching using Zoom, by focusing more specifically on using Google Slides and its features, live captioning, as well as creating activities for students to do during the synchronous session within breakout rooms in Zoom. The key take-away is to plan for what the students need to do before , during , and after the synchronous sessions, and that will guide you in the preparation for your class meetings too.  The Process Before Class: Share on Canvas any links that students will need for the sync session. Pre-assign breakout rooms if needed, otherwise ro...

Millennials watch 11.3 hours of online video a week! With the average YouTube video at 4 minutes long, that means they are watching about 171 videos per week. Educators need to take note of this trend, and take some tips from the "TubeGurus" on how to create engaging videos for their courses. Our webinar on March 2, 2016 talked about a number of topics from the use of humor, to how to get started with ideas. We shared and discussed some of the best practices below, and applied them to videos for online and flipped courses.  Some of the best practices included: Shorter is Better Use the 5A's of Emotion Tell a Story Call (Students) to Action Create a "Viral" title As always, the best way to get started is to meet with an instructional designer, with your objectives and a few sketches on what you want to do.  Below is the summary video, slides and resources. Resources: Summary video PowerPoint slides Frame-by-Frame Template Video Idea L...