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April 2025 | Tech Teaching Tip from Timothy Corvidae

by · April 3, 2025

Advice to Faculty from Online Students

The LTC offers a helpful service mid-quarter that we call CRAFT (Community Reflection and Feedback on Teaching) in which we come to your program to lead students in a feedback session. This allows students to check in on their own learning and provides you with valuable information about what’s working and what to improve. It’s not too early to plan for this. Contact the LTC for more information and to schedule.

Below, I offer some observations I’ve gathered from students in various programs I’ve visited with CRAFT. All of these received widespread agreement among students. I share them with you without commentary; some may be relevant to your teaching methods, and some may not be.

The insights you gain from a CRAFT session may prove useful, but nothing beats receiving feedback from your current students in real time. I’m a fan of minute papers at the end of class or during the class after a lecture. These can help you tailor your teaching to your students on the spot. Here are some helpful tips for managing minute papers online. My favorite format for gathering feedback about the whole session is the Critical Incident Questionnaire. I wrote more about this practice here.

And now, from our students (these are composite statements, reworded and consolidated):

Learning Through Collaboration

  • We really enjoy working in breakout groups during Zoom class! Labs in these small groups help us figure out where we’re at and give us a chance to help each other. Just make sure to bring us back together afterward to compare approaches, share insights, and get your guidance.
  • Group work is great when it’s balanced. Big group discussions are engaging, but smaller, more intimate groups let us connect better with each other.
  • We love learning from each other—having a well organized online platform where we can interact makes this easier.

 Engaging and Flexible Instruction

  • Video lectures are amazing! Being able to pause, rewind, and watch them whenever we want helps a lot. Being able to view these outside of class gives us more time during class to ask questions and work on things together.
  • Keep us engaged with interactive labs and discussions. Zoom can sometimes make it hard to stay focused, so more hands-on activities help a ton.
  • Please break up long lectures into shorter parts—we can’t stay focused for an hour straight on Zoom.
  • We love it when you work through problems with us in class. Watching how you—and other students—tackle problems is super helpful. 

Assignments and Canvas Organization

  • Assignments we can finish during class are a big win. It’s best when we don’t need to rely on group work outside of class or can tackle them individually.
  • A well-organized Canvas is a lifesaver! Posting everything ahead of time and sticking to due dates helps us avoid frustration.

Discussion Board Design

  • Discussion boards could use some variety. When everyone responds to just one prompt, it gets repetitive, and we don’t feel like we learn as much. Giving us different topics to research makes the discussion more interesting, and requiring comments can encourage better dialogue.
  • Requiring comments on discussion boards helps us engage with each other. As much as that’s an extra step, it allows more of a dialogue. It’s hard to choose to read other posts if we don’t need to comment.

 Encouraging Participation

  • Talking in Zoom can feel intimidating, but it’s great to hear each other’s ideas. Help us feel comfortable speaking up! Using tools like chat or whiteboards is helpful, but a little encouragement to turn on cameras and talk more can go a long way.
  • Group us by skill level in breakout rooms when appropriate, especially in skills-based classes like computer science—it helps us connect better with peers working at similar levels.

 Faculty Connection

  • We really appreciate when faculty connect with us by sharing their humor or stories about their life. It makes the material so much more engaging.
  • We value when faculty let us explore topics we’re excited about and guide us to be specific and not too general.

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