Student Engagement in Synchronous Video Meetings: Exploring Changes in Instruction

Abstract

One of the challenges educators face in teaching is maintaining student engagement in lessons, activities and assignments. In the classroom, teachers employ a variety of strategies intended to gain and maintain students’ attention and engagement with the material or subject being studied. In a face-to-face environment, a teacher may utilize partner and group work, or check in with students while surveying the class, among other strategies. However, when face-to-face instruction is not possible, educators must navigate an unfamiliar environment from which to instruct and engage. The recent educational climate in a viral pandemic has forced educational institutions to include online synchronous and asynchronous methods of instruction. As a result, instructors have had to rethink ways to gain and maintain student engagement in the new medium. This project explores ways to both adapt teaching strategies that are successful in increasing student engagement in the classroom to synchronous video meetings, as well as investigate new strategies that may only apply or become possible within a synchronous video meeting environment.