Long time Zoom users, before your next meeting, you may want to review your Zoom account settings. New tools have been added that will help make your next meet more engaging and interactive.
For those who teach face to face, having students work in small groups is a great way to get them to engage with the material and encourage participation. You can do the same thing online in breakout rooms. Breakout rooms create private sub rooms so that students can meet. Each breakout room has their own white board, sound, and video, so the breakout rooms won’t interfere with each other. For more information on the features of breakout rooms, please see the Zoom tutorial.
Polls are a great way to get a quick sense of how your course is going. You can create polls that can help reinforce your content or conduct surveys to get student feedback. Although you can create polls anytime during your meeting, it’s best to do so before your meeting starts, to ensure seamless transitions during your meeting.
Nonverbal feedback allows for students to communicate at any time during the meeting. Students may use icons to express things such as, slow down, speed up, or raise their hand to ask a question. You can also use nonverbal feedback to conduct quick polls, like “Who needs a 5-minute break?” Students can then respond to the prompt by giving a thumbs up or a thumbs down. All icons are public to the group and are shown in the participant window.