Getting more out of your course chat, especially with student moderators

We're almost all teaching online, and many of us are in remote synchronous situations, using platforms ranging from Bb Collaborate Ultra to Zoom to Microsoft Teams.

We've faced challenges teaching in these environments, especially back in the spring when we all scrambled through "emergency remote" scenarios, with students who had expected onsite courses suddenly being faced with online learning.

Participation is one major obstacle. I have worked with faculty from institutions around the country, and many have expressed how difficult they have found it to cultivate the conversations they were accustomed to in their years of onsite teaching. They describe being faced with a student presence that consists of black rectangles with names in them. It can indeed be tough.

Like many teachers, I don't think it's appropriate to require students to turn on their cameras. They may not want their environments to be seen. I get it. Also, some of them are mic shy and are reluctant voice participants.

But I do say that if they don't have their cameras on and are unwilling to participate by voice, then they need to participate by using the chat, typing their questions and thoughts.

As a result, my classes often have lots of chat activity. Good things happen in that space, with students posing thought-provoking questions and responses and often supporting each other with the kind of brief messages that characterize digital writing spaces.

For teachers, the chat can be daunting. It can take some skill and patience to manage the messages that are popping up simultaneously with spoken conversations.

To help with this, I strongly recommend the use of student chat moderators. These student moderators have become a key part of the participation element of my synchronous online courses.

At the beginning of the term, I ask each student to sign up for a class period to moderate. I email moderators instructions the Friday of the week before their assigned day:

Hi Alex and Jasmine,

Thank you for signing up to be our chat moderators next week.

This is not a difficult task, as you have seen. Synchronous class moderators will simply help me keep an eye on the chat stream during that class session. Please do the following:

• Pay extra attention to the posts in the chat.
• When a post appears, announce it to me and the class. Please do not worry about interrupting me!
• I can take it from there, but you are more than welcome to comment on the post.

If you like, you can put a post or two on the chat to stimulate conversation.

My thought in assigning chat moderators is that there can be lots of activity in the chat. Sometimes, though, it’s pretty quiet—if it’s quiet, that of course is no reflection on you!

This is low-stakes work that will receive a low-stakes writing grade.

Don’t hesitate to contact me with questions,
Prof. Warnock

First, moderators add a level of participation simply because someone other than me, the teacher, has a regular voice presence in the class. As you can see, I encourage the moderator to interrupt me by reading or summarizing chat messages.

Second, the moderator, by their presence, appears to encourage conversation. None of them wants to get stuck in a "lonely" chat room, so they help each other out! Also, I get the sense that they enjoy hearing their messages being read or summarized by the moderator.

Third, I think moderating is a good skill for them to practice. They will certainly be working--and playing--in remote-type environments for the rest of their lives.

Finally, note that I grade the chat moderating. It's a low-stakes writing grade, and all I ask is that they engage to receive full credit.

When you first encourage chatting, it can be a little overwhelming, but I have seen so much good writing and thinking in the chats that I wonder if I should carry this over to my onsite courses, perhaps even projecting on the wall a running commentary about the spoken discussion that they can add to via the devices they all bring to class anyway.

The course chat provides a good way to get students who might not otherwise do so to participate in your courses. Using student moderators to help you manage these conversations provides a number of additional learning advantages.