Open your classroom early for free chatting time. Ask leading questions. Bring your pet. If you have a coteacher, debate whether chocolate or vanilla is a better ice cream flavor. Post trivia questions.
Use nonverbal response strategies. Zoom has yes/no buttons, hand raising, hands clapping and thumbs up buttons. Ask yes/no or a/b/c/d questions that students can respond to with buttons.
Explore Nearpod and Peardeck. Both platforms allow for students to quickly engage with perception responses or checking for understanding responses during a google slides presentation. It does require students to navigate to a different screen/tab, so preteach students how to keep two screens/tabs open and allow time for navigating back and forth from zoom. One benefit to Peardeck (and I think this is true for Nearpod as well), is that as the teacher you get to see all student responses, but they do not get to see each other’s. In zoom, all responses are visible to the rest of the group.
Teach students how to ask questions–how to formulate an actual question, and how to pose a question just to you through the Zoom chat.
Dedicate time to building community. Use Caitlin Tucker’s ideas for selfie icebreakers and another using the frayer model.
Most of all, make sure that your students are doing something, so that learning is still student centered and engaging. https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/do-something/
What Do I Do Next? 