Teaching skills using videoconferencing tools

by: D-Eva Project

In a context of a course of teacher education delivered online, students must design and run a class in group. The sequence is divided into three steps: 1) design, 2) run and 3) assess.

1) Students organise themselves in groups of four people. Each group designs a 15-minute teaching sequence to be run in front of their classmates. The teaching sequence must be oriented to their learners' target and be defined including: a central topic, learning outputs, grouping, duration, tasks, resources and assessment criteria. The design must be completed in form of a grid. Once the teacher presents the activity, 20 minutes of online tutoring is facilitated in the first session to support students.

2) The next session (depending on the size of the group this can be extended) is devoted to role-play. Each group must run the designed class by videoconferencing while their classmates and the teacher observe and assess them through a checklist. It is recommended to switch on the camera. All members of the group must perform a part or intervene in the teaching sequence. Some observers have roles to make the session more real and dynamic, for instance: disturbing, participatory, demanding etc.

3) After each performance, classmates and the teacher give feedback to principal students, and they can respond back. The session is recorded previous agreement.

Keywords

Role-play, emotional competences, teaching skills, communicative competences, co-evaluation

Problem justification

Although nothing compares to giving a class to real students (those who are the target, for instance, in Primary Education or Early Childhood Education), simulating giving a class in a controlled context might be of help to Education students to develop their future necessary skills (even if they run the class or attend it and give feedback to their classmates) and to teachers to observe, support and assess them.

Transforming the activity of giving a class into an e-assessment activity could be useful to: (the student running the class) to diminish the nervousness of performing in front of a big face-to-face audience, (students attending the simulated class) to concentrate only on the student giving the class, (all) to record the session for further analysis.

The digital transformation, thus, might facilitate the observation and feedback by classmates and the teacher thanks to the use of video digital tools. Thus, a session based on giving a class can be later used as a teaching material or study material if, for instance, some notes, comments or questions are added to the video. Furthermore, in cases where on-site education is interrupted, the use of a videoconferencing tool could serve to easily adapt such types of activities. Thereby, developing the necessary practical skills of Education students through active e-assessment activities can be maintained.

Competences

Design and run a teaching sequence in front of an educational audience.

Develop strategies to deal with emotions when running a class.

Develop teaching strategies to respond to contingencies.

Be able to identify good and bad practices by critically self-assessing and assessing others when running a class.

Assessment strategies and instruments

The teacher facilitates a checklist and questions for reflection to students before starting the activity. The instrument is jointly reviewed and negotiated. The draft instrument is as follows:

Table 1. Checklist for reflections to students of activity 1.

Assessment criteria

The activity counts 10 points. The checklist above will be used by the teacher to take notes about the assessment criteria. The activity will be evaluated considering the rubric completed during the role-play and the learning output.

Learning output (counts 2 points): - The group has delivered a learning product containing a grid with the learning sequence and including all items asked. - The learning sequence is appropriate for the target audience (topic, grouping, timing, task, strategies, resources).

Role-play (counts 8 points): - All students perform the learning sequence. - Students demonstrate skills to design a coherent learning sequence adapted to the target group. - Students demonstrate skills to run a class and deal with diverse students’ behaviours and unexpected situations. - Students demonstrate a range of teaching strategies. - Students demonstrate communicative competences. - Students demonstrate emotional competences.
- Students are able to self-assess their practice and give feedback to classmates to improve teaching skills.

Description of the feedback

The feedback will be given by the teacher and classmates after the performance. This will be short, oral and synchronous. Then, after the delivery of the learning output, the teacher will give quantitative and qualitative feedback to each group in written form asynchronously.

Type of digital tools

Sessions will be run with a videoconferencing tool like Teams or Meet. Sessions will be recorded using the software’s recording option.

Levels of potential digital transformation

Accessible and available: developed lots of times, easy and known

Example of a case

References

Correia, A. P. , Liu, C., & Xu, F. (2020). Evaluating videoconferencing systems for the quality of the educational experience, Distance Education, 41(4), 429-452, DOI: 10.1080/01587919.2020.1821607

University of Wollongong. Teaching and Learning with Web and Videoconference Technologies. Retrieved from https://tr.uow.edu.au/uow/file/c194f4b2-3322-4b96-8297-4ef295c23e22/1/Teaching%20with%20Web%20and%20Videoconferencing%20Tech.pdf

Documents

Table 1_activity 1.pdf

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