Last week, we hosted High School of Business™ Summer Training Institute. As with many other events at the moment, the decision to meet online was made of necessity. We were particularly wary because the primary pedagogy used in the program is project-based learning. And, we are firm believers that teachers benefit from experiencing PBL as modeled by trainers before they begin to teach it.
Many hours went into designing the training. It was a success from the viewpoints of the participants and our staff. We hope these lessons learned encourage you to not abandon PBL should you need to teach it remotely.
- Start with a Tech Dry Run. Help students learn technology (and test it yourself!) in a low-stakes session. Use fun ice breaker activities to teach basic functions, such as chat box, response icons, mute/unmute buttons, playing a video, sharing the screen, and adjusting webcam settings.
- Use break-out rooms for teamwork. Group assignments can be manual or random. A timer brings everyone back into the main session automatically. In-class facilitation can be mimicked by easily visiting break-out rooms. We found that while discussion within the large sessions was not as active as in live training, the participants felt more comfortable talking in the break-out rooms.
- Guest speakers, as always, are essential. And, they are possibly easier to coordinate virtually than in-person visits. No time spent traveling to/from the school. No parking/building pass. It may be even easier for guest speakers to participate in your class online than in person. And now that most people have had to become familiar with online meetings, the comfort level for doing this is higher.
- Assign recorded video reflections. These were more thoughtful than the written reflections we have seen at in-person training sessions. We are not sure why this is, but there was definitely a difference.
- Make extra efforts to build community. It will likely take a little more work online than in person. Students typically get to know each other organically as they sit side by side in the classroom. Build in some fun “ice breaker-style” activities that encourage getting to know one another. We also recommend asking students to leave webcams on to increase participation.