Hello, Can You Hear Me?
Receiving and giving feedback is challenging during live-stream classes, but there are workarounds and also opportunities.
“Dead silent” is what the classroom has become to a teacher nowadays. Another compares teaching online to being a radio DJ as you are never sure if anyone is listening.
With the rollout of Home-Based Learning (HBL) in Singapore, teachers and students are interacting much less than in a typical school day. The classroom has been broken up into a series of modules — live-stream classes, asynchronous classes and self-directed learning — and each poses new challenges for teachers and students to receive and give feedback.
Reimagining the Physical Classroom
One of the biggest differences teachers notice when streaming live classes is the lack of physical presence and body language cues.
“[The] lesson is much quieter than what a normal class would be. A lot of thinking that’s going on in their heads… now needs to be made visible,” says a teacher. “[In a physical classroom,] when I give feedback or pose questions, I can tell from body language a student’s response.”
Teachers may no longer be able to walk around a classroom to monitor their students, but there are other means to engage students in a digital space. For instance, Nearpod is a platform some use to monitor students’ live responses to exercises, while video-conferencing applications such as Zoom have features for receiving feedback such as the “Raise Hand” button. However, such digital interactions require students to be technically proficient or they will be left out, especially for younger ones who have little experience with learning using technology.
“Actually I know how to answer the question. I just don’t know how to do the tech stuff,”
A Primary Three student who relied on his father to submit his work.
Perhaps this is why some teachers have come up with physical workarounds to interact with their students in a lesson streamed live. They have created routines for students, such as a “High five” or a thumbs up to acknowledge they understand, or get them to write on a whiteboard and flash their responses on screen. Such gestures also allow teachers to get a quick overview of whether their students are following a lesson and they can then address any misconceptions right away.
“[The feedback received is] very spontaneous, very fast,” says a teacher. “I will scan [their responses] and I will know if they understand or not. If they don’t, I will re-teach, and they will show their whiteboard again. And if some are still not sure, I will call names.”
More Distance, More Feedback?
The lack of physical interaction is challenging, but the digital space has also reorganised the traditional classroom and changed how teachers and students interact. As students are now all equidistant from the teacher, some who used to sit passively at the back of the classroom now participate more. Those shy in face-to-face settings have also spoken up more. They can also safely direct their questions to dedicated feedback channels, such as chat rooms or private messaging. Thus, the flow of a lesson is not disrupted and teachers can choose when it is appropriate to address the queries or even do so one-on-one after class.
The challenge of getting and receiving feedback in a digital setting has made teachers more conscious of the need to engage their students, and even see the lesson from their perspective.
“The trade off [between traditional classrooms and HBL] is lesson preparation. I have to prepare a lot in terms of scaffolds to make thinking visible, so as to get feedback from students,” says a teacher.
One teacher’s technical setup for a live-stream class says it all: A monitor for lesson slides, another for observing students and a mobile phone to view how the lesson looks from the students’ point-of-view. Whether in a physical classroom or digital space, teaching is all about toggling multiple perspectives in order to ensure the lessons are delivered effectively.
