May 2025 | Tech Teaching Tip from Timothy Corvidae

Low-stakes check-in methods to guide your Zoom sessions

Who doesn’t dread talking into the silence and blank black boxes of a Zoom screen, not knowing how many, if any, of your students are following what you’re saying, or are even still there? Teaching online can be discouraging and disengaging, for you and your students.

But it’s also got an advantage over the in-person classroom, if we use it: there are many ways to efficiently check-in with our students in real time, and in ways that are comfortable to our students.

Ask for an Emoji check-in.

Advantage: It’s fun. It’s fast.

Variation: Check on understanding with Thumbs up, thumbs down emojis

Ask for a 1-2 sentence response in the Chat.

Advantage: It’s easy, it gets all students re-activated in a low-stakes way, you can see who has responded how and address specific comments, perhaps inviting students to explain or elaborate on their responses.

Variations:

• Rate your understanding on a scale of 1 to 7. If answers vary, send to breakout groups by level, give them an appropriate task, and cycle through the groups providing tailored assistance.
• What’s the muddiest point of [the lecture just now/the readings this week/etc.]?
• Share at least one new question today’s session is bringing up for you
• What’s a take-away from today’s session?
• What’s something you’ll walk away thinking about, from today’s session?
• Or try a more adventurous tack with a prompt like “If your current understanding of today’s material were a [weather phenomenon/meal/animal/other metaphorical category], what would it be?” The point of this isn’t just to be silly and unexpected (though that may wake up some engagement!); it can allow students to express frustration and confusion in ways that might feel less risky than straight-out saying they’re confused.

Poll them mid-class.
Advantage: Anonymity, or at least privacy, breeds honesty. You might get a more accurate gauge of understanding if students report in a poll rather than the chat.

Ask them to draw a response on a whiteboard or on real paper (which they can then hold up to their screen. Not always easy to see, but absolutely funny and humanizing.)

Facilitation Tip for all check-ins:
Make sure to leave time to work with whatever you find out from them. Ideally, doing a check-in does (at least) three things: it gives you information, it gives them information (about themselves, as they pause to think about their learning; and about each other, which can help them feel less alone in how they’re experiencing things), and it re-engages them as participants