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This Course Contains Student Group Work And Presentations during Zoom Live Sessions.

Description

This is an intensive 8 week, 3-credit-hour course with a three-hour Live Session partially dedicated to group work. At the beginning of the course, students are divided into groups (those who had scheduling conflicts or preferred to work alone were given a chance to opt out of a group). There were 9 groups of 3-4 students, and only 5 students who ended up working alone. The Live Sessions were used to discuss assigned readings, do worked problems and walk through a particular stage of the project. Then in the last hour of the Live Session, the instructor used the Breakout Room feature of Zoom to divide the class into groups. Each group could communicate privately. If they had a question or needed guidance, they could invite their instructor to join their breakout room. The instructor could monitor any group at any time. This feature makes it possible to do small group work online and in real time. The instructor decides when to bring all the students back to the main meeting room.

This course has been taught twice by two different instructors. While the course design and course content have remained relatively the same, the way in which student presentations are handled has changed. In the first run of the course, students presented during the Live Session using the Screenshare function in Zoom. The second run of the course had double the number of students, making it impossible to deliver all presentations during one Live Session. In this case, groups pre-recorded their presentations and submitted links to their videos for review. Other students are then required to watch and respond to their peers' presentations. This course demonstrates that Group Work and student-led Presentations are possible in online classes.