How do you manage an online class and keep students engaged?

Direct answer: Agree a short set of norms in writing before the first session and go through them at the start of the first session. Cover how to ask a question, when to use chat, what the camera expectation is and what to do if the connection drops. Model each norm once so students can see it in practice.

The British Council (n.d.) lists several parts of managing a lesson that apply online, including adjusting the online classroom for distractions, technology and turn-taking, giving instructions effectively, checking understanding, managing pace and timing, and signalling transitions. That list works as a planning checklist for a first session. Martin and Bolliger (2018) surveyed 155 online students with a 38-item questionnaire about engagement strategies, built on three kinds of interaction (learner with learner, with instructor and with content), and found that learner-to-instructor strategies were the most valued, with regular announcements or email reminders and grading rubrics for all assignments at the top of the list. Together they suggest a simple habit: plan each part of the lesson, and tell students in advance what will happen, when, and how they will be judged (British Council, n.d.; Martin & Bolliger, 2018). A one-page norms document sent before the first session, with the link, the time zone, the rubric and the agenda, costs little and can head off early confusion. Test the sharing and audio settings yourself with a colleague first, because a tool that fails in front of a class costs more time than any norm saves.

Direct answer: Encourage cameras, do not require them. In a Cornell survey of 276 students, 90% had their cameras off at least some of the time, and the most common reasons were appearance, privacy and connection. The authors recommend explicit encouragement alongside clear norms.

Castelli and Sarvary (2021) surveyed students in an introductory biology course at Cornell in spring 2020, using an end-of-semester questionnaire. Of the 276 students in the final sample, 249 (90%) reported keeping their camera off at least some of the time. Respondents could pick several reasons: 41% were concerned about their appearance, 26% did not want others to see what was behind them, 22% had a weak internet connection, and 17% felt that everyone was looking at them. Webcam failure was cited by only 2%. Of the 53 students who chose "Other", 28 (53%) said that having cameras off was the norm in the class. The authors recommend not requiring camera use, explicitly encouraging it while the norms are set, addressing distractions, using active learning and surveying students about their own challenges. The study is one course at one university, so treat the percentages as a pattern to check with your own group rather than as a national figure (Castelli & Sarvary, 2021). A quick anonymous poll in week one will show which reasons apply to your students.

Direct answer: Say the instruction once, post it in the chat, check it with a short question, then open the room with a timer and a role for each person. Visit each room twice, quickly first and carefully second. Perkins (n.d.) offers these moves in a British Council handout.

Perkins (n.d.) recommends checking instructions with instruction-checking questions and leaving the instructions in the chat so students can return to them once they are in a breakout room. She suggests setting a timer, giving each group member a role such as notetaker, timekeeper or involver, and monitoring the rooms twice (once quickly, once carefully). She also advises giving thinking time before you elicit an answer and grouping learners who share a technical problem, such as no working microphone, so they can use the chat together (Perkins, n.d.). The table below turns these moves into a quick reference.

Direct answer: Check in more often than you would face to face, because body language is harder to read online. Use polls, ask closed questions in the chat and follow up by voice, and add short retrieval tasks. Retrieval practice helps students keep ideas, though it does not replace other assessment.

The British Council (2020) advises that "It's harder to read body language when teaching online. So, check in more frequently with learners on their progress and understanding." The same article notes that concentration dips faster online and suggests polls and surveys, introducing new tools slowly and checking what learners see on different devices (British Council, 2020). Perkins (n.d.) suggests using the chat box for closed questions and then following up with an open question on the microphone, and stopping screen-sharing during speaking activities so students can see one another. The Education Endowment Foundation (2020) reports that retrieval practice and self-quizzing help students retain ideas, while warning that it is not a replacement for other forms of assessment. One pattern to try, which is our suggestion rather than a finding from these sources, is a poll every ten to fifteen minutes, a two-question quiz at the start of each session on the previous one, and one open question per activity that needs a spoken answer. Across the three sources in this section, the common thread is that teachers must create evidence of understanding, because the video grid rarely supplies it.

Direct answer: Plan shorter blocks, vary the activity, and give students permission to turn off the self-view. Bailenson (2021) names four possible causes of Zoom fatigue, but he presents them as theoretical arguments, not yet scientific findings, so treat the fixes as sensible trials.

Bailenson (2021) proposes four explanations: excessive close-up eye gaze, cognitive load, increased self-evaluation from staring at one's own video, and constrained physical mobility. He describes the paper as a theoretical argument and says these are not yet scientific findings (Bailenson, 2021). The practical value for a teacher is that each argument suggests a testable adjustment. Bailenson himself suggests reducing the size of the video window, hiding the self-view, and allowing movement or audio-only breaks, and fewer simultaneous tools is a reasonable response to cognitive load. These are untested suggestions, so try one change at a time and ask your students after two sessions whether it helped. This also protects the camera policy above: a student who can hide their own tile may be more willing to leave the camera on. This is our inference, linking Bailenson's self-evaluation point to the 41% appearance concern above, and it has not been tested.

Direct answer: Teaching quality matters more than the delivery format. The Education Endowment Foundation (2020) rapid assessment found no clear difference between real-time and other forms of remote teaching, and peer interaction can motivate students. The evidence base is limited, as 45 of the 60 reviews it drew on were rated low quality.

The Education Endowment Foundation (2020) based its assessment on 60 systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and it rated 45 of them as low quality. Its authors state that ensuring the elements of effective teaching are present, such as clear explanations, scaffolding and feedback, "is more important than how or when they are provided" (Education Endowment Foundation, 2020, p. 4). They also report that there was no clear difference between teaching in real time and alternatives. Another of its key findings is that peer interaction can motivate learners, and the strategies studied included peer marking and feedback, sharing models of good work and live discussion of content, although many of the studies involved older learners (Education Endowment Foundation, 2020, p. 4). The authors note that the evidence came from contexts that do not closely parallel the circumstances schools faced in 2020 and included many studies in higher education. Our reading is modest: put your effort into explanations, scaffolding and feedback, and treat the tools as secondary. For feedback design in a course assignment, see the EDUC9144 assessment guide.

Direct answer: MAAS recruits tutors and subject experts who teach and mentor students online. If you already run live sessions and want to work with students on academic skills, you can apply on the become an expert page. The page lists the requirements before you apply.

MAAS works with experts who coach students through live video sessions, so the routines in this guide apply to that work: clear norms, instructions in the chat, frequent checks and a camera policy that invites rather than forces. Students who want one-to-one help in a subject can look at the subject tutoring service. If you teach or tutor online and have a discipline that students ask about, read the requirements on the become an expert page and apply there.