Preparation and planning for an effective collaboration session

A Collaborate session is not the same as a face to face lecture and needs careful planning as it will be recorded in most cases. If Class Collaborate is used as part of Academic continuity, remember the Community of Inquiry Framework (social presence; cognitive presence and teaching presence) needs attention during your session. Do not assume that the student knows how to use all the tools in Class Collaborate, use the Class collaborate start up support slides on the help site.

• If required, use a collaboration tool such as a discussion board to get students to post questions for a revision class.
• Beforehand give students a reading on Netiquette guidelines on how you expect them to behave online during a session
• Prepare the slide show to include regular student interactions through surveys (polls). Put the question and possible answers on the slide (remember to leave space at the bottom of the slide for the poll to appear, without hiding answer details). Collaborate has a poll function that allows Yes/No answers or up to 5 answer choices to be selected.
• To avoid clutter on the chat, specify that it is only to be used for questions from the student side. These are attended to by the moderator, who may refer questions to the presenter If you have no moderator, ignore the chat while you are presenting, and when you take a break or give the students a poll to complete, look at the chat.
• The ideal is to get a Moderator (a subject & module knowledgeable person) or two to assist during your session. They must manage the technical and other questions during the session. If the person can sit in the same venue, it will allow you to confer during poll sessions when the mic is off.
• Use a poll to determine student understanding or experience of material – it is the only feedback function available.
• If you are new to presenting, practice before hand in a practice module from training. Use the Presenting a session check sheet from the help site to assist you, e.g. to remind you to start and stop the recording. Do a time planning of the ideal progression needed to cover all the aspects or questions.
• Effective time planning will determine the length of the session. The scheduled duration of a session in Class Collaborate is used to calculate the attendance of a student.
• Build in a quality assurance poll at the end of the presentation.