[Small and large class teaching] Building teacher and student connections through simple synchronous sessions [1D]

I converted lectures to live Zoom sessions and made sure I left ample time to answer questions raised in the chat. A notable difference I found was that more students asked questions this way than in a normal lecture. They often answered another students question before I could as well which was encouraging to me that students were engaging. For my tutorial sessions I provided some scenarios and lab results prior to the session and then used these for discussion in small group tutorials where I provided questions. In some classes I used breakout rooms and once tried using the discussion board which was a total disaster. So really nothing too different to face to face but I found again in tutorials students seemed much more likely to offer an answer on the chat than in a face to face situation.

Hard to know yet what the impact was overall but I do feel students engaged well with the material. Lectures only managed about 50-70% attendance but these were recorded so many would have watched at their leisure. Tutorials were 100% attended and often went over the time allocation. I think I managed to keep the students engaged and made them feel some sense of belonging by also providing some drop in sessions where we just talked and I answered any questions I could that they asked, often about things not related to the course.