Comodal Class Delivery

Why: Students at a distance, students who can’t make the F2F class.

Mission: Represent the students online and maximize their experience.

Date: During JAC reading week (March 3-7), M/T/W better for Sean.

Idea: The training should include both RPs and techs since there are now people in both roles that have not given a comodal class. A quarter of the training participants can join online, and this would show them what the online experience is like, while also training everyone on the best practices of a comodal class.

Learning Objectives

1. Define what a comodal class is and its key characteristics.
2. Identify common challenges in comodal teaching.
3. Describe strategies to address these challenges.
4. Design a comodal class that ensures equitable participation for both online and face-to-face students.

RP

1. Be ready with your PowerPoint or any materials on either a USB key or easily accessible through the cloud. Ideally, make sure your tech has all these materials the night before.
2. Design activities with a comodal format in mind.
3. If you have physical materials, think about what the digital equivalents are and have them ready and accessible for the online participants.
4. Allow extra time than you think because comodal activities ALWAYS take more time than you think.
5. The end of an activity should be visible to everyone in person and online. This may require taking photos of in-class work and quickly making them visible to the online participants.
6. Your presentation should be shared through the Teams call so that the online participants can see clearly. Pointing the camera to the smartboard is not an option.
7. Look at the camera when talking to the class to make the online participants feel like they’re a part of the group.
8. Account for any online lag. Take 5 seconds after posing a question or soliciting the students to ensure that the online participants are on the same page. Frequent checks with the online folks are always a good thing.

Tech

1. Do a sound check with online participants 10 minutes before class starts to make sure they can hear and see everything.
2. Help make any activities happen on the day. This requires on-the-spot problem solving depending on the resources available to you in the room.
3. Distribute any digital materials, check any permissions and make sure everything is accessible.
4. The end of an activity, when we usually share what we’ve done, should be easily shown to everyone in person and online. This may require taking photos of in-class work and quickly making them visible to the online participants.
5. Listen to the Teams call while in class so you know the quality that the online participants are hearing. You can do this on your phone or your own laptop, for example.
6. Alert the RP if any online hands go up, usually the RP is not looking at them.
7. Monitor the chat.
8. Manage breakout rooms.
9. Hit the 🔴 record button!

Activities

Breakout Rooms

1. Problem: It’s difficult to create a “bubble” such that an online participant and their in-class partners can talk to each other without the ambient noise of the class disrupting them.
2. Solution
3. Utilize multiple classrooms if possible. This one is the easiest since the in-class group can just take a laptop into another room.
4. Use the corners of the room, try to separate the group with the online person as far as they can get from the rest of the class.
5. Go out into the hall, though this may require dragging out a table and chairs which can be annoying.
6. Make sure that the Teams setting “noise suppression” is toggled on.
7. If there’s only one online participant, you don’t have to make an actual breakout room in Teams since it’s already a room for one person.

Watching a Video

1. Open the video and share the desktop, making sure to toggle “share computer sound” on.
2. Mute the class mic so that the online participants don’t hear the audio twice. This is where monitoring the sound on your own device comes in handy, so you know instantly if there’s feedback.
3. Remember to unmute when the video is over.