Virtual Meeting Discussion Questions

Jenae Cohn, Academic Technology Specialist for PWR, Stanford University

Beth Seltzer, Academic Technology Specialist for Introductory Studies, Stanford University

Edited for McNeese faculty members: Dr. Wendi Prater, Director of eLearning, McNeese State University

Synchronous Pedagogical Recommendations

Use slides and screen sharing within the web conference to make sure discussion questions are visible to students who may have a slow Internet connection or who may struggle to hear the audio for the initial question. (Look for “Share Screen” at the bottom of your meeting platform.)

On your first slide, display an agenda at the start of the class session so that students know what to expect of the shared time together.

Also, consider making discussion questions available in advance in Moodle, etc. so that students can access the questions if screen sharing does not work. If sharing slides in advance to Moodle, share as PDFs, as students will be able to access the material on their phones. 

Asynchronous Pedagogical recommendations:

To remove technical hurdles and to ensure that students are able to engage with peers and each other in a discussion-based class (even without a strong Internet connection), you might choose to move student discussion to an asynchronous format. Create a Moodle Discussion as a forum to facilitate communication, encourage students to interact, ask questions and respond to discussion prompts.

Craft discussion questions to be as clear and as specific as possible so that students can build off of the question for a sustained response. 

Assign roles to students so that they understand when and how they might respond to you or their peers. For example, students might “role play” as particular kinds of respondents or you might ask them to do particular tasks (e.g. be a summarizer, a respondent, a connector with outside resources).