How to run digital classrooms
Stop pretending you’re together.
I teach almost entirely online at Minerva, but I have many friends and colleagues who are professors in more traditional classroom contexts. When the Coronavirus hit, one of the most common questions I got was: “What video conferencing software should I use for my online classroom?”
Everyone wanted me to compare Zoom and Hangouts. I think both are mediocre: I use the Minerva Forum. But no one asked: “How do I put a video camera in all of my students bedrooms?”
Of course, video conferencing IS a camera in students’ bedrooms. But my colleagues still have a classroom in their head. They weren’t picturing the actual physical circumstances of their students during class. This creates a lot of dangerous assumptions. It assumes no one will attend class in their underwear while eating a bowl of cereal with their mic hot. It assumes that teachers don’t need students’ consent to see them in their homes.
This article is about the spoken and unspoken norms of physical and virtual spaces and how those influence teaching in those spaces. If you are moving your class online, please try to think hard about norms. Virtual spaces, because they are new, tend to have unclear social norms.
Classroom norms
Here are some familiar, usually unspoken, social norms present in a physical classroom.
There is a teacher — This person is “in charge” and responsible for both providing learning content and leadership in ambiguous situations.
We learn in class — Everyone gathers at a set time and location to learn, with some modest preparation between gatherings.
We express what we know and receive feedback — Class is an opportunity for everyone to receive an evaluation of their class performance.
Most students automatically adopt these norms, even in a virtual classroom. This is bad. These norms sit on top of a more basic set of social norms that have to do with “physical locations.”
A brief aside to clarify what I mean: One of my Ph.D. advisors did an experiment in the 80’s where he asked participants to describe a classroom — participants said “books, desks, blackboards etc.” They didn’t mention “walls, door, floor, etc.” even though classrooms are more much likely to have “ceilings” than “chalk.” This is because questions are context sensitive — by asking about a “room,” the experimenter had communicated that they knew there was a floor, and the participants understood that they should focus on objects that distinguish a classroom from other kinds of rooms.
A similar thing happens in virtual spaces — by telling the class that they are in a “virtual classroom,” students act like students, and teachers act like teachers — but they often forget to act like people. The basic norms of human interaction depend heavily on context cues that we receive by looking at bodies in physical space.
Expectations in Physical Space
We can hear each other — The group is in a common audio space. There is no distracting background noise. There is a single speaker at a time. We all use a common language and similar cultural commonplaces.
We can see each other — Everyone is able to nonverbally signal: we can make or break eye contact, gesture, raise hands, signal emotions via facial expression etc.
We take turns with the group’s attention — Only one person can be attended by the group at a time. This “speaker” will speak for between 10s and 2 minutes, then pass the group’s attention to someone else. Usually this hand off is nonverbal: looking at the person they expect to respond. The group does not interrupt the current speaker, except nonverbally.
None of these are true in a virtual classroom.
Some of these norms are actually backwards in virtual spaces— Most video conferencing software does not allow you to simultaneously see everyone, but does allow everyone to simultaneously speak. Background noise and feedback on open mics is common. Few of the nonverbal signals that we use to take conversational “turns” work in online spaces. It’s not possible to point at someone or orient your body toward them. It’s not possible to know when someone is looking at you. Everyone appears to be making eye contact, even when they are in another tab and ignoring you. It’s hard to tell when people are raising their hands, and it feels weird to raise your hand while sitting alone in your bedroom.
Think about the literal situation each person is in: they are not in a room with 20 other people watching them. They are alone at home with a box on the table. There is no group. There is no group attention. There is no common space. The norms of a shared physical space don’t actually make sense. The layout is like the Panopticon. And the Panopticon was designed to force people to sit quietly.
Here’s a common scenario in online meetings:
Because the class assumes the “there is a teacher” norm, one person starts talking, and can’t figure out how to stop. They’re relying on the “we can see each other” norm to signal when they should stop, but they don’t see anyone waiting to speak. Eventually, the “we take turns with attention” norm starts to make them feel uncomfortable, and so they pause to give someone else a turn. The sudden silence and lack of a clear attention hand-off surprises the audience. Everyone knows that now it’s time for the “receive feedback” norm, but to one knows who is supposed to speak. However, because everyone assumes “we can all hear each other,” they’re worried about interrupting their peers. Everyone is sitting in silence waiting for nonverbal cues. However, “we can see each other” is still not really true. The original speaker begins to get anxious (they feel they did a “bad job” of handing off the group’s attention), and so they start speaking again. The audience tunes out — because it’s clear the speaker is prioritizing “broadcast” over “conversation.” Yet no one leaves — because “we learn in class” and leaving is an admission of failure to learn, even though this is a sub-standard learning experience.
The longer this feedback loop goes on, the harder it is to change speakers. The group is confused over which norms they should follow. Everyone collectively leans back to see what’s going to happen. They abandon the social negotiation necessary to allocate the group’s attention. And into that vacuum steps — well, usually a rich, white guy who likes computers.
Failure to negotiate in social spaces marginalizes the people who gave their time to be in the class. This marginalization falls most heavily on students who already come from marginalized groups. I was not joking in the opening splash when I said that the Brady Girls tend to have a worse experience of online learning than the Brady Boys. But they are not alone. All students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds suffer in digital spaces not because digital spaces are intrinsically worse for them, but because they are expected to navigate implicit norms.
What it means to be from a marginalized background, whether race, class, gender, disability, sexual orientation, immigration status, or simply unfamiliarity with tech culture, is that you are not included in the dominant culture’s norms. I taught for several years in the educational opportunities program at the UIUC, which provides support for students from traditionally underrepresented groups. I especially remember one awesome student, brilliant, patient, kind, into meditation. He had never heard of a “semester.” He assumed I’d be his teacher in the spring as well. This is a totally reasonable, intelligent assumption. He was the first in his family to go to college. Semesters are a meaningless bureaucratic fiction— a social norm of college. What he needed from me wasn’t a brilliant content lecture. He needed a concrete explanation of how to sign up for spring classes. He was smart enough to navigate the system, but the system was deliberately hidden from him.
Moving into digital spaces with unclear norms punishes these students, and rewards those who are used to the culture and are used to having the group’s attention. Virtual spaces without strong norms are oppressive. I have yet to see a University who is moving online in the fall that plans to do any digital training about how to establish clear, just norms in digital spaces.
Virtual Space norms
Here are the norms that are necessary to hold a decent conversation in a virtual space. No one will do this automatically, you have to explain this up front (feel free to share this article), and work as a community to gently remind each other to use these during the meeting:
Use clear, explicit hand-offs — Pause at least 15 seconds after speaking and/or use a deliberate sign off phrase such as “Over.” If possible hand off, by name, to the next person. “Go ahead Angela, Over.” 15 seconds will feel like eternity. Your face will burn and you will want to do something to break the awkwardness. Do it anyway, this is the time you are giving to your peers.
Coordinate who speaks with nonverbal channel — Everyone should use a chat channel to communicate nonverbally while someone is speaking with phrases such as: “Hand raise,” or “I’d like to respond to Angela’s point about this topic.” The chat is used to structure the conversation: chat participants might even signal the order of speakers and choice of topics. “1. Patrick — respond to Angela wrt/her point about bees. 2. Angela — counterpoint.” Don’t allow multiple sign ups. Encourage chat comments — it’s not rude. It’s clearing up airtime.
Have an operator — One person should be responsible for facilitating the conversation and acting as a “talk show host.” It’s their job to ensure that quiet participants get a chance to speak, and to break up logjams in chat. It’s their job to communicate and referee to keep things running smoothly.
Everyone on stage — Use a gallery view so you can see everyone simultaneously. Avoid gatherings larger than the number of people that will fit on a screen. Encourage dual monitors. Minimize the use of slides or other visual aids that take up room that could have faces.
These norms would be awkward in physical space — but this is not a physical space. Using the social conventions of a physical space when you’re in a virtual space is vague, and provokes anxiety. It redounds to the benefit of the most confident students.
Virtual meetings can be warm and inviting. Because everyone sits about 18 inches from a camera, it can feel like you’re all in a circle whispering together. During isolation, meeting with my students online was one of the rare moments of human contact that kept me going. Listening to them speak about their experience of the pandemic is something I will remember as long as I live. Our classes were as different from an alienating webinars as they were from white-water rafting.
If your online classes feel disconnected — it’s because you’ve chosen to make class a business meeting or even a prison. You’re treating your students like they’re in little cubicles that you’re monitoring. You’re “presenting material” rather than “being with people.” This is a natural consequence of reinforcing the norms of a classroom without the mitigating norms of basic human contact. You aren’t required to do this, you have great power to make your virtual space feel human. The discomfort is just you feeling the weight of social norms that don’t make space for you.
Ironically what tends to prevent teachers from creating human digital spaces is their over reliance on social norms they probably don’t even agree with. You need to play a different social game in online spaces. It will feel new and uncomfortable at first. But after a few times saying: “Back to you Kalia, Over,” you might start to enjoy being a talk-show-host/pilot. You might even start to question if teachers should even use classrooms.
Patrick Watson teaches Neuroscience and AI at Minerva. He’s helped robots cheat on middle school science tests, compared amnesia to the cultural revolution, and writes on love and epilepsy. He’s currently developing a role-playing game about business wizards.
