Virtual Teaching: The Faculty’s View

Dean Levin asked faculty members for their thoughts on the first full quarter of Zoom teaching. They shared them with each other, and have already begun borrowing each other’s best ideas. Here’s what they wrote:

LAURA ARRILLAGA-ANDREESSEN,

Lecturer in Business Strategy: “Power of You: Women in Leadership”

First and foremost let me state that I have an extraordinary team at LAAF.org and an exceptional group of CAs (Alline Kabbatende, Tamar Nisbett, Andrew Jakubowski, Madeline Dean, Alix Farhat) without whom my course would never have been near the experience it has been for my students. Their combined efforts, ideas and support have been invaluable to my success, and my gratitude to them all is immense. The GSB technology team provided me and my LAAF team an excellent tutorial before class started, as well — they were wonderful!

What is working?

1. Weekly surveys — customizing a Google form survey based on that week’s content and guest visits for students to share their feedback, then incorporating their preferences into teaching. We asked questions about the technical dimensions of the class at the beginning of the quarter to make necessary adjustments to enhance the Zoom classroom experience.
2. Using Zoom polls — incorporating student experiences and perspectives into lectures and using them as jumping off points for deeper discussion about challenging issues. Having funny quarantine-related questions for each poll that bring humour and bonding to this crazy, new normal we are all experiencing.
3. Breakout groups — students love the small group breakouts. Typically for about 15 minutes, students will discuss tough issues that they face as women in leadership roles and then we come back and have a full class discussion (having students report out from each group proved less fulfilling for student learning).
4. Chat function — I use chat function to ask students to share experiences or ideas about how to tackle certain situations, issues, challenges. Then I read out loud some key highlights, summarizing as I go, and then provide a written transcript to students with everyone’s ideas after the class session. Students also use chat to pose questions and other students who would like to pose a similar question add a “+1”, thus giving me understanding of what questions take the highest priority. The chat function has also been used for student:student dialogue as they have been posing questions to their peers. In yesterday’s class on negotiation, one of my students chatted that he would welcome peer input on his own negotiation process with an employer and many other students commented that they would love to set up an affinity group to provide support and advice! Despite the physical divide, the chat has been a great platform to foster student team building and connection. We also use it to Shine celebrate one another and our guest speakers.
5. I manage participants on the left side of my screen, alongside a Google sheet with class participation grades in order of least contribution points to highest contribution points. When students use the hand-raise function in Zoom, I am able to rapidly weigh the hand-raises against the participation rankings to make sure that I am as inclusive as possible with who I call on, given my significant class size (nearly 80 I believe).
6. While I did manage my slides and my lecture and the Zoom breakouts, chat function and participants function by myself for the first session, I now have an amazing member of my foundation team who runs my slides for me, thus allowing me to focus entirely on students and Zoom. That has been invaluable to my focus.
7. Since I do not have the in-person experience of teaching in the classroom (which is my favorite thing I do professionally), and I know that students are struggling and are often alone or isolating themselves with a small group, I have increased my energy as I talk and present about 5x which, in turn, energizes the students. Even though I do not have student feedback real-time with their body language, laughter, reactions, I have a huge monitor that enables me to see them (although not hear them as they are all on mute) and I continue to use humour, vulnerability, authenticity and enthusiasm to teach. This allows me to share my passion and I can see reactions on students’ faces (since I require videos to be on).
8. As I mentioned, I have a huge hi-definition monitor, a 4G Logitech camera, a light reflector pad attached to my monitor, and my laptop all hooked up to maximize what I can see on my screen. I also have a special LED light attached to my monitor. My background is simple (some shelves with art and a few books, but highly minimal, so as to not be distracting), and I make sure that afternoon natural light does not obscure my background. I look directly into the camera as much as possible and lean into it for emphasis.
9. Per Glenn Kramon’s sage counsel, before class started, I sent a long letter to every student about the journey ahead. I also held small group Zoom sessions with almost every student in my class before the quarter started. Once the quarter began, I held mandatory small group office hours and have already therefore had two 30–45 minute small group (4–6 students) Zoom Office Hour/Coffee Talks with every student in the class. Like Glenn’s experience, this has been the most important part of my bonding with students. Also, I stay on the Zoom meeting for 10–25 minutes after every class with any student (group of students) who want to discuss topics further or did not get a chance to ask their questions. Some guest speakers also choose to stay on the Zoom meeting after class to address additional questions with me.
10. In addition to office hours, I have also held optional “coffee talks” that allow students to examine certain topics or themes from the class in greater depth. These smaller conversations let students share experiences in a safer environment than the larger lecture. I also hosted an event with Dr. Lynn Westphal in partnership with Stanford Women in Management (WIM) that explored the topic of fertility options for the career-loving woman. Many students were interested in exploring this topic, and we opened the event up to students beyond our class, as well as their partners, and had upwards of 70 participants.
11. For every student who has a family emergency, I follow up with them directly via email to support them and call them on the phone to talk live about whatever they are facing and see how I can help them.
12. I also sent out a Zoom norms document to all students before class started to set expectations about having their videos on, when to use chat, how to raise hands, etc.
13. I practiced using Zoom and running through lectures about ten times before class started and in the first week of class, so now it is second nature to me.
14. For students who are really struggling with course related issues (e.g. the undue burden placed on women of color who are fundraising from VCs), I spend 30–60 minutes with each student on my weekends on Zoom, providing personal coaching to them and emotional support.
15. Following my initial invitation of guest speakers, I send them an adapted version of the Zoom norms that detail instructions for logging on, recommendations for audio settings, as well as other relevant information.
16. When the guest speakers are speaking, a member of my team uses the “spotlight” function in Zoom so that they are the highlighted speaker on everyone’s screen. Depending on the comfort level each speaker has with Zoom, they either share their screen if they have slides, or a member of my team manages the share screen function and slides.
17. To encourage my students to engage with the course material on mentorship and sponsorship outside of class, I created an optional “Legacy Leadership Mentorship Challenge” for my students in which they post on social media offering to mentor women and members of underrepresented groups in their networks. Many students have participated so far, and it is great to see them engaging with each other outside of class on social media. We used hashtags #PowerofYou and tagged the Stanford GSB to enhance online engagement. It would be great if the Stanford GSB communications team could also help promote this mentorship challenge that so many students are participating in! I will donate $50 to Second Harvest Food Bank for every hour of student mentorship provided.
18. My slides are very simple, only including main concepts and descriptions. The slides are also image-forward, with icons and pictures replacing text wherever possible. I also include funny slides every once in a while to break up the lecture.
19. I also use the GSBGEN370 Gmail account to email students directly on a weekly basis regarding any class updates, upcoming events, etc. Every Tuesday morning, I send a personalized email from this account. Then any responses to those emails are visible to my team, and we streamline communication.
20. To build a smooth-sailing Zoom experience, students and guest speakers are advised to log in (up to) 15 minutes prior to the class start time. I, along with a member of my foundation team actively monitor the waiting room for our Zoom call 15 minute before class starts and throughout the duration of class, and this team member and I only admit pre-approved individuals on Canvas (or guest speakers and their respective team members) to the Zoom call. We have successfully warded off Zoom-bombers through this strategy.

What is not working?

1. Small breakout groups of two or three take too much time to load, as a result we have had larger breakout groups that do not always lend well to the group sharing experience due to their size. In addition, I have had my team members sign off during breakout sessions and sign back in to avoid being sorted into breakout groups.
2. Cold-calling students based on their participation track records worked well initially to get students comfortable sharing with the large class, but ultimately students preferred to offer up their insights more organically in an open class discussion format.
3. Initially we had students submit questions for guest speakers before class, but we received the feedback that they prefer to ask questions on the spot after I interview the speaker.
4. Due to the confidentiality of the class and the intimacy of the issues that we are discussing, security on Zoom was essential. As such, I set up the aforementioned waiting room to admit students. Often students are late or drop off due to technical difficulty, and we need to have someone managing that intake process throughout the course of the class. In most cases, I am able to see students in the waiting room while leading class and just let them back in. In addition, some students have had trouble changing their Zoom name to their full name on their Stanford Zoom account, so my team member has had difficulty confirming some identities of people seeking to join the Zoom.

Overall perspectives on what makes the class so successful?

1. Prepping speakers beforehand on preferences and best practices.
2. Reworking my lecture content and slides so they are more adaptive to online teaching, complete with more breaks in the lecture for group work, questions and student discussion.
3. Being clear about student expectations for class (video on, participation, using chat, etc.)
4. Having AMAZING guest speakers that bring in diverse perspectives and tactical advice for my students that is highly relevant at this stage in their careers. The speakers’ openness to answering questions and offering their perspectives and advice has created a safe space for students to share some of their personal challenges. Switching between my lectures and guest speakers has added a smooth balance to the class, and students are excited to engage with these (almost entirely) women leaders.

JENNIFER AAKER, General Atlantic Professor,

NAOMI BAGDONAS, CONNOR DIEMAND-YAUMAN,

Lecturers in Management: “Humor: Serious Business”

Overall perspectives on what makes the class successful

Have learned a lot so far. Would say that if Humor: Serious Business class is going reasonably well it is due to:

• Translating our lectures (20 min) into micro-lectures (5 min) and designing a high degree of interaction in the class (e.g., writing partners, breakout groups, polls) — so the students are interacting with each other and on their toes.
• Motivating the students to test and iterate with our material, applying the learnings outside of class and a big build up to the final project.
• The heroic efforts of the T&L Hub and staff (Lisa Radcliff!) and our incredible TAs.

What has worked well:

• Set up 15-minute one-on-one Zoom calls with each student before the quarter began to (a) get to know their goals in taking the class and onward and (b) motivate them to push themselves hard through the quarter (the topic of the class may undermine its perceived rigor; our intent is to debunk any misconceptions)
• Integrated data into the class, where we fielded surveys before class and then integrated that data into the lectures so a) the theories and behavioral science findings integrated into the class are stickier and b) students are better able to personally connect to the concepts in the class. This year’s lectures have been significantly more dynamic and responsive than years’ past (which students seem to recognize and appreciate).
• Designed for student-interaction in class (also before and after). We begin each section with an interactive hook (e.g., role play, live data collection, pools, student generated content, a quiz that reviews the key principles from the prior class), as we’ve found students’ attention span (and tolerance for large blocks of unidirectional content) on zoom is limited. Also, significant use of interactive tools
• Zoom polls
• Chat box prompts
• Breakout sessions, with students completing exercises in writing partners (2) or small group form (4) — followed by a full class debrief
• Warm calls where students whose work has been particularly impressive, are asked to present in class
• Reach outs after class to individual students who performed well — to keep raising the level of performance and continue building relationships in this new format
• Created new activities with make-shift icons to represent each student. For example, in one activity (called Spectrum), students were given access to a Google drawing page with a 2x2 of appropriateness and funniness; each student’s picture populating graph. We then gave the class examples of controversial humor, in the form of Tweets, ads, videos, and comics. Students were asked to move their icons based on their reactions to the humor bits, with the following instructions: React first (don’t analyze); Be honest; be open (3) Own being an outlier. Celebrate shifts. Once students shifted their icons, the entire class engaged in discussion around reasoning for their icon. This lead to a rich discussion of ethics, appropriateness, intent and consequences where students would explain their view and able to shift their perspective after the class discussion. Their placement allowed us to call in each of the students (and also revealed a student or two who was logged on but not active; a fun bonus!).

Spectrum Activity:

• Invited guests to speak to how on concepts in the class are applied for the last 20–25 minutes of the 3 hour class: Students introduce the guest (1 min), we ask student-generated questions collected prior to class (10 min), we call on students for live chat questions (10 min), end on a “lightning round” of quick questions (1 min) — brief, focused, high energy.
• We also take a 10 minute break in the middle of class.
• Write weekly Thursday newsletters so all students are on the same page including:
• A summary of insights and frameworks from the prior class, and how we expect them to take the learnings of the prior class forward to build toward deeper learning and final project.
• Readings, cases, and videos in advance of the next class, as well as out-of-class activities and prep work prior to the next class
• Introduce levity in the class through:
• Regular icebreakers / warmup activities, most of which double as applications of the content
• Creative “ramps” to introduce the concepts in each module (e.g., a skit where we interact with each other in sterile email language to highlight the importance of communicating with humanity and levity in online communications).
• Careful attention to what’s going on in the students’ backgrounds / surroundings and Impromptu encouragement of them to share (e.g., kids, pets, partners)

What hasn’t worked well:

• Some of the meatier conversations (e.g., dark side of humor) are harder to navigate online.
• Despite office hours and one-on-one meetings before class, it is still quite hard to get to know the students. But we are teaching 104 in two sections; suspect smaller class sizes would help.

KATE CASEY,

Associate Prof of Political Economy, “Strategy Beyond Markets”

Overall I feel like this quarter has pulled us into the future, where we needed to go in terms of online learning, but a bit faster than we had anticipated. The sense of urgency and purpose that the surrounding circumstances provide has created fertile ground for experimentation and innovation.

What has gone well

· Structured breakout room discussion. As Keith points to, it is one of the nicest features of Zoom to create space for the students to interact with each other. And since they are already on their devices, it makes it pretty seamless to push out assignments to complete in the room — for example, I sent out an excel sheet organized around a theoretical framework we discussed in class, asked the students to apply the framework to a new scenario in the room, and then screen share and discuss their analysis when we reconvened the full classroom. This echoes Charles’ emphasis on hands-on learning.

· Public chat has been the nicest surprise. I was initially ambivalent about the public chat function as I thought it might be distracting and realized quickly that I would not be able to stay on top of it while lecturing, but left it enabled as an experiment. Skimming the thread after class, I saw that students were using it to seek out each other’s views on material that relates to the lecture but is not central to the discussion. My absolute favorite, though, is when someone makes a particularly insightful comment, or a quieter student jumps in to share their experience, the chat erupts with cheers and endorsements for that person for president in 2020 and the like. It is totally endearing.

· It takes a village. I have benefited immensely from the work of my ZAs “zoom assistants” and MBA2 TAs, as well as the heroic efforts of the T&L Hub and staff throughout the GSB. Proud to be a part of Team SQ2020.

· Keeping the pace fast and approach varied in how we engage and interact with the material has been critical.

What could go better

· I agree with Rob about the 25% reduction in content. The flip side of this is that it offers a discipling device to streamline and focus the material and how its delivered.

· It is harder to get the discussion to flow as a coherent debate as opposed to a string of sequential comments.

· Airtime is scarce. The downside of this of course is that with 80 students per 80 minute section, and the slow down of the online platform, fewer people get a chance to speak each class. The upside is that the scarcity of airtime seems to make cold calling seem more fair and democratic. I have started posting my cold call questions in advance so students can focus their reading and thinking and no one is caught off guard.

What I miss

· I feel like I do not know the students as well and really look forward to meeting them in person one day.

JULIEN CLEMENT,

Assistant Professor, O.B., “Analytics for Organization Design”

Thank you for asking! I tried to think of a few things that seemed like they helped (although, in the spirit of my class, I don’t know the counterfactual so it might just be an illusion!). I’d put them in two main categories.

Definitely the number one challenge: keeping everyone engaged

Students lose focus a lot faster in this format (me too!). Here are a few things that seemed to help:

- Fast-paced sessions with many components. A typical 105-minute session might go as follows:

o Quick recap of last session with an in-class survey (I use Socrative, which I find nice and interactive) to check that everyone got it.

o Quick discussion of the case they had to read before class. I always give them a pre-class question to answer in 250 words, so I put a few student answers on my slides as a way to anchor the discussion and make the students feel ownership of the discussion

o Quick lecture, followed by an open-ended question. I send the students to a break-out room in groups of 4 or 5 to discuss the question, and then we quickly discuss it with the whole class

o Applied exercise involving data analysis, often involving break-out rooms as well (breakout rooms are the one saving grace of online teaching!)

- Slides. In Zoom, the slides take the front-stage! The teacher is just a tiny window at the bottom-right of the slides. Having good-looking, clear slides helps a lot. Stopping to share the screen when we want the students’ attention to be fully on us can help as well (I didn’t do that quite enough).

- Making things fun when appropriate/feasible: I think that the students feel just as awkward as we do, so making things feel lighter seemed to help a lot. Each of us have their own style, though, so this might not work for everyone. Self-deprecating humor feels natural to me (making fun of my own incompetence with Zoom for instance), and that seemed to help keep things light. Showing my dog to the students every once in a while helped too. And most of all, taking advantage of the students’ own efforts at making things feel light! Two examples:

o One of my students had a lot of creativity in using different Zoom backgrounds; I made fun of it almost every session or reacted to other students having fun with it

o One time, no one was raising their hand and I resorted to cold-calling. The student answered “Okay I’ll answer, but the rule is that if you cold-call then you have to show us your dog!” which first took me aback, but I did what she asked and the whole class laughed (with comments in chat such as “<Student name> is a hero”). This became a common occurrence in the next sessions and helped maintain a light atmosphere and a sense of community

- Being reactive to feedback. Right from the start, I tried to emphasize the fact that this was a new experience for me, that it wasn’t going to be perfect and that everybody’s feedback was welcome. Several students sent me very useful advice by email (even as simple as “you might want to buy a new microphone”). And after 4 out of 9 sessions, I asked them to fill out a “mid-mid-quarter feedback survey” which I debriefed in class. I think this really helped both giving me good ideas on how to improve and showing the students that we were really trying our best.

Almost as important: making things easier for me

I quickly realized that, to make the class work for the students, I needed to make it work for me. When I started the class, my mindset was to really work hard to make the students get as much from their experience as possible. It’s generally a good mindset, but it can also mean doing too much. Teaching online is tiring! After three sessions (for three sections, in a compressed course), I was getting extremely tired. After an hour or so, I would typically start being inarticulate in the way I lectured and feeling unable to think fast enough when students asked difficult questions. These things helped:

- Breaks. It might seem lazy for a 105-minute session, but taking a 10-minute break in the middle was probably the best idea I’ve had in improving the class. Several students thanked me for it. After the break, I felt not only that I was being more articulate and energetic, but also that the students were a lot more participative. A clear win-win.

- Not giving in to negative assumptions. This might just be because I’m new at teaching and I was more anxious than most of my colleagues, but I often found myself assuming the worst about how students felt about my class. Just because someone’s face doesn’t look happy doesn’t mean they aren’t! In my class, there were two students whose facial expression during class suggested (to me!) like they were especially skeptical about what I was teaching. One of them ended up sending me a very nice email about how much they liked the class, and the other one ended up being my “show me the dog if you want to cold call me” accomplice. Ithink that interpreting facial expressions online can be a lot more misleading than in class.

- Relying on my TAs. My TAs were amazingly helpful in scanning the chat for important questions, in setting up the breakout rooms, and most importantly giving me feedback after each session after what felt like it worked and what didn’t. The idea of having breaks came from a TA who was scanning the students’ facial expressions during class.

There are definitely things I could have done better as well. The main thing that comes to mind is being very explicit about things like the structure of the class and the grading policy. In a physical classroom, students feel a lot more confident asking for clarifications about these things. My mid-course feedback survey helped a bit with this, for instance in realizing that some grading components were creating undue stress for the students. But spending more time than usual on this during the first class and perhaps providing reminders through Canvas announcements might be a good idea.

Best, Julien

COLLINS DOBBS,

Lecturer in Management, “Interpersonal Dynamics”

What’s Worked Well So Far

Consistent with some experiences expressed by several others, one crucial success factor has been collaborating quite closely and intensely with the course TA/Facilitator(s). The metaphor that I use is that each week we have a flight plan and as co-pilots, we establish a routine to closely review the flight plan (course readings, slide deck, breakout group questions, and poll questions). We have established a weekly schedule where we review everything, test the polling technology, and have an initial class run-through, and then a final review). I’m super grateful to work with a TA/Facilitator who is open to my iterative “tinkering” throughout the week, as I am making adjustments based upon what I read in the students’ post-class learning journals and pre class assignments. My weekly goal has been to try and figure out how to present/discuss 3–5 hefty topics and synthesize them into 1–2 interrelated topics.

So, like others have mentioned, we have used polls usually 2–3 questions per week) to engage students about things such as their “in the moment” state of being; their reactions / lived experiences with 1 or 2 topics from the week’s readings; we also consistently use Zoom breakouts (usually 3 and no more than 4 students per) to discuss a different topic than the poll (usually after I have delivered a 5–8 minute lecture), (Quick Note: I’m also appreciating how Keith uses breakouts to a very positive effect with more people and more time allotted for discussions. I offer this because our class design is built around having breakouts that generally last no more than 10–12 minutes so I’ve learned from student feedback to have no more than 3–4 students in breakouts in those situations); As others have shared, I also miss the face-to-face student interactions and the lack of social cues from students, which I typically rely on quite heavily to engage students when I open up class debriefs and invite perspectives and build an in class dialogue flow. With that said, over the past couple of weeks, I have received feedback from students and TA/Facilitators that I’m appearing to make “better eye contact”, as I’m learning to remain more focused on looking at the computer camera as I’m in “share screen” and not looking around to scan for students faces, which can be distracting. Also, while I haven’t used the Chat function as much as I thought I might, I have used it sparingly to share specific instructions, for example to list a link to a class poll when needed. I have much preferred the use of the “raised hand” feature to help facilitate class discussions effectively.

I find myself a bit devoid of having the natural cues that I use to gauge how students appear to be connecting with each other and the course material at times during my lecture. I’m learning to trust the process/camera to deliver the content with a crisp and yet deliberate pace to try and mitigate what I can’t see/feel when I’m in zoom screen share mode.

Lastly for now, I’m getting better (I hope) at slowing down a bit to support more opportunities for student-to-student or student-to-me connections, since I often feel “rushed” internally because I have so many things that I know that I’ve left on the “cutting room floor”, at least from a presentation/content perspective. Several students have been quite thoughtful and diligent to reach out to me and share feedback specifically about this over the weeks, which has helped me calibrate my internal clock a bit. Lastly, in addition to the facilitators doing a phenomenal job working with the students, they have done an excellent job of sharing their best practices and ideas and experiences of interacting in other virtual spaces and finding ways to bring those “new lessons” or ideas into our learning space.

Challenges So Far

In addition to the challenges I referenced above, I believe my challenges have been consistent with what others have expressed. A couple that I will re-highlight are the technology, and Zoom Polling for us. I have heard from other colleagues that they have found success with Zoom Polling so I share this with that knowledge in mind. However, I/We weren’t as successful. So, I do want to offer that we have had great success with Polls Everywhere. If someone finds Zoom Polling to be problematic, this is a useful and wonderful alternative. Even though we had a tech failure in week 2 (polls froze), I’m glad we’ve continued to use it. As for class prep time, I spend a great deal more time in my preparation over the week in order to figure out ways to adapt to finding a “personal connection”. For example, since my natural/developed style of connecting with students (and everyone I suppose) is highly attuned to audio/visual communications, I’m feeling a big “emotional gap” right now. In order to help me close that gap when I read the students post-class journals or pre-class assignments, I have their pictures with me to try and connect more fully. While this is a “small thing” on paper, my experience of trying to mentally & emotionally map to the students primarily through their written responses and narratives is more challenging without the consistent interpersonal contacts. Also, as I mentioned above, I’m making many more “last minute” adjustments to attempt to attenuate the course flow to match the issues/themes that emerge from the written assignments. Since I know that I have to pare down some of the content to fit the platform, occasionally some of the “integrating concepts” are not as obvious and can get missed.

Overall, given the circumstances, I continue to appreciate all of the students’ high commitment and the close collaboration with my teaching partners (Facilitators/TA). Again, thank you Jon and everyone else on this thread for sharing your virtual teaching experiences.

KEITH HENNESSEY,

Lecturer in Economics, “Policy Time” and “Civic Workshop”

Highlights:

• Zoom breakout rooms are fantastic. I have teams of 7–8 students meet weekly for 1h+ to try to answer a handful of policy questions. Each group is moderated by students and monitored by me and my TAs. We lurk with our cameras and microphones off. If a discussion appears stuck I will occasionally jump in. Students seem to enjoy both the peer-to-peer interaction and the substantive challenge.
• These discussion groups maximize class participation. I am using peer feedback from these discussions a component of their class participation grade, a technique I copied from Ed Lazear.
• I am adapting the substance I teach in real-time to current events.
• I have a lot of COVID content this quarter but have spread it out, both to allow the real-world problem time to develop, and so that we don’t get too beaten down as a class by the subject matter.
• Each week we have a Tuesday Twist for Zoom. My two favorites so far have been Jersey Day and Pet Day. College Swag day was fun, too.
• My students write their weekly memos to a friend or family member. This gives them another opportunity to engage on the content outside our classroom.

Longer form:

Mostly I just look for ways to get the students to talk with and to each other. This is harder in a big Zoom room but can work quite well in small-group breakout rooms (6–8 students). My Policy Time course has a weekly rhythm to which the students are now accustomed, making it easy for them to manage their workload and prep for active engagement in class. I use decision worksheets and peer facilitators to structure the small-group discussions, and I pose questions on which the students are likely to split or for which there is no good easy answer. It is hard to give a long lecture, but easy to get students engaged if you keep them on their toes.

I’m also using peer feedback on the discussions as a component of their class participation grade, a technique I copied from Ed Lazear. It seems to be working well.

At the same time, it is harder to form the class into a cohesive group without physical presence. Body language, wave of emotion (negative and positive), and instantaneous feedback, to which many GSB students are finely attuned, are largely dissipated in Zoom. Two details are important here: (1) Without a fixed seating arrangement, and with Zoom sorting person-boxes semi-randomly, there is no fixed “room” per se; and (2) With student microphones muted, you miss the twitter of laughter, the sighs, groans, and gaps. You can’t easily roll your eyes or nudge or whisper to your neighbor on Zoom, and that can make it feel like you’re teaching a collection of individuals rather than a single coherent class. I am also a visual/geographic teacher, in that I associate different physical seats in the classroom with particular students. That is absent in this format, which makes it a little trickier.

Also, I have two incredible TA teams this quarter, maybe the best I’ve ever had. We are constantly adapting and iterating in this new environment. They have their fingers on the pulse of the class in ways that I don’t. I am relying quite heavily on their advice, even more so this quarter than most.

ROD KRAMER,

Professor, Organizational Behavior, “Lives of Consequence”

It’s very nice to hear from you both — and what a great idea to collect and aggregate feedback on our positive learning experiences this quarter. I am not using ‘reply all’ to your email — so as not to impose on everyone else’s email burden — but please feel free to share my views in a future compilation of all of our inputs, if useful. Perhaps in a Google Doc?

[By the way, it’s so nice to connect with you again, Glenn. I really enjoyed — and benefited greatly — from your terrific seminar on writing OP-EDS; and I distinctly remember how skillfully you ‘zoomed in’ some of the guest speakers from the east coast into your class.]

For what it is worth, I’m finding zoom-based learning to be quite a doable and even thoroughly enjoyable experience. To be sure, I am climbing the learning curve and it definitely has the drawbacks people have mentioned (e.g., less of a sense of physical presence of the class as a social unit; it’s harder for emotional contagion — good moods and excitement — to take hold in the form of collective laughter, etc.; and i miss the ready availability of the non-verbal cues indicating student reactions, attention/engagement levels, etc. So, the excitement of the “live” classroom is hard to replicate using zoom.

However, I believe strongly that online learning of this sort IS an important part of the university’s pedagogic future. In fact, it is hard for me to think that we won’t be doing much more of this kind of learning in order to facilitate true global learning — spreading Stanford’s ideas across geographic boundaries and time zones. So, it is personally quite exciting for me to think that the Stanford of the future will be able to accommodate the learning aspirations and needs of people all around the globe … and of all age groups (including individuals pursuing second- and third- educational and professional “chapters” in their lives). Zooming creates a true platform for life-long learning and is an inherently more inclusive, democratic one. (I happen to be reading futurist Brayan Alexander’s ACADEMIA NEXT: THE FUTURES OF HIGHER EDUCATION, and a few related books right now — and these meditations on the university of the future have me very excited by the prospects; I’m sorry I won’t be around long enough to see this wave fully formed. But I am personally committed to doing more LEAD-like online teaching in the near term before I retire.

In terms of my specific teaching experiences with Lives of Consequence this quarter, I am very grateful that I was given permission to use the NovoEd-based version of my course that I originally developed for LEAD executives. The MBA students seem to be loving the material and the fact that it s self-paced and visually so engaging adds to their substantive learning, as well as their enjoyment of that learning experience (both of which I value). I think more of this kind of pedagogy would be great for the GSB (including the development of Khan Academy-style presentations by faculty. As Khan himself has demonstrated rather brilliantly, online education does not require expensive production values to be effective). Khan’s book on his experiences developing the Khan Academy (THE ONE WORLD SCHOOLHOUSE: EDUCATION REIMAGINED) is amazing and inspiring about the future of this approach and well-worth reading.

I also developed podcasts for my course and although I don’t listen to many myself, my students do and they love them!

I have also created a weekly ‘blog’ using NovoEd that summarizes the important take-aways from our zoom session — and provide additional resources to answer some of the questions that have come up in those sessions. The students have told me they love the follow-up because it “ties up” some of the loose ends in their own thinking.

I also include breakout groups for every zoom session and am getting very good feedback on the impact of these small group discussions. I have experimented with various

groups sizes and compositions, but am now most often keeping the groups smaller than perhaps other professors (N = 4–5 students) and short in duration (30 minutes). I make sure to

‘prep’ them by sending them an announcement prior to the class as to the (1) rationale for the break-out group and (2) the questions or procedures to follow in generating a good discussion. My approach

is very much IDEO-based and our students are pretty than “up to speed” on that approach. We then convene to discuss the best take-aways from their groups.

Finally, a “device” that has worked particularly well for me is the addition to the course of a “virtual Coupe Cafe” after the scheduled class is over. I stick around after each class and chat with any students

who want to chat — and we chat about anything they want to discuss. This results in the same nice feeling as a doctoral seminar and students really seem to be appreciating

and enjoying it very much (as am I).

Well, I think that’s “all the news that’s fit to print” (sorry, Glenn, I couldn’t resist!)

GLENN KRAMON,

Lecturer, “Winning Writing”

What I like:

1-Ten-minute one-on-one Zoom calls with each student before the quarter began. A great way to meet everyone before they enter the tiny Zoom rectangles. Best 25 hours I spent this year.

2-The Chat function. Many students are more likely to type than speak. They keep it funny and interesting. When the GSB announced the STEM degree, we stopped to cheer and chat. Encourage students to use the public chat rather than private conversations.

3-The Zoom Polling function. We sprinkle a few votes through every class, on topics serious (Do you get writer’s block?) and ridiculous (How many showers have you taken since quarantine began?).

4-Same techniques as in classroom: GSB gossip time, latest student op-eds published, review of students’ best work from previous week, short “warmup” exercises, lots of slides and videos, students reading their work to the class, breakout groups to critique each other’s writing, guest lecturers who help critique.

5-Our amazing CAs, Allegra Tepper and Aurora Griffin, my eyes and ears, Zoom instructors and Chief Fun-ancial Officers. Good CAs are more important in online teaching.

6-The students can’t throw tomatoes at Old Prospector, as they did last autumn. Now they blow raspberries.

What I would like:

1 — To teach, even if alone, in a room with a big screen, whether a conference room or classroom, so I can better see the students. My little home office, desk and monitor are too small. And the Internet connection in my cottage worries me.

2 — To remind myself that because students ask more questions in Chat than in the classroom, we move more slowly through the material.

3-To meet the students, many of whom I’ve yet to see, in person. At a Class of 2020 reunion at summer’s end or next spring.

CHARLES LEE,

Professor of Accounting, “Alphanomics”

1. Getting engagement prior to class

I use pre-class videos to cover material that is less interactive (essentially, I split my material and pre-tape the stuff that requires little or no class discussion). Students write notes on partially completed handouts while watching the videos, then bring these handouts to class. We then do the juicier and more interactive material in class. I find a lot more of the learning is happening outside of class time this way. Fortunately, I started moving class material to videos two years ago, so this did not have to happen all at once.

Video clips have been a much better way to deal with students with diverse backgrounds. I have some students with a lot of investment experience (Pros) and many with none (Newbies). The videos allow the Newbies to replay more difficult stuff and the Pros to fast forward them. I try to use them to level the playing field before class.

2. Lots of hands-on learning during class

With the more structured stuff covered before class starts, I can do more hands-on activities during class — like live valuations, explore internet resources, etc. My course is actually quite well suited to online sessions, as so much of what we do is hands-on and experiential. Students are often working with their computers during class anyway.

3. Presentation dynamics

During class, I need to switch often between mediums: annotating PDF files, running PPT slide decks, operating Excel spreadsheets, and navigating the internet. It took me a while to get the transitions down smoothly.

For PDF annotations, I settled on using an iPad Pro and an app called PDF Expert. I log into each Zoom session with both my PC and my iPad (as two co-hosts), turn off the audio on my iPad, and use it exclusively for PDF annotations. One added bonus with the iPad is that when I am not annotating, it shows me what the students are seeing on their screen. Another bonus is that I have a digital record of what I wrote and can post that online as well if necessary (I first tried a document camera, but I found its refresh rate too slow and the projected image too dark).

4. Connecting outside-of-class. I miss getting to know the students, and I worry about their state-of-mind. To stay in touch, I started hour-long “Zoom Cafes” (informal get-togethers around a given theme; sometimes with guests). Attendance is optional, but I have been getting around 40% participation. I also have sign-up sheets for twice-a-week “Office Hours” (pretty much filled to the end of the quarter). All the students who miss an assignment get an “are you okay?” email. Anyone who misses a lecture is required to drop me an email to access the class recording.

5. My TAs have been spectacular. Like many others, I am finding my TAs indispensable. During class, they monitor the chat bar; filter the questions; drop me reminders; take attendance; grade class participation; and generally free me up to focus on the material. Outside-of-class, they help with grading, field student questions, and help me keep tab on how individual students are doing.

6. The market gyrations have been fun to watch. What better time is there to be studying the stock market? We watched as analysts revised S&P500 earnings down every week last month, while the prices kept moving up. We are awed by the current S&P500 12-month forward P/E of 19 (10-year average was 15). We mulled over the valuation of tech firms, oil and gas stocks, real estate investment trusts, and retailors.

Overall, I have been learning a ton and changing up a lot of stuff, and I expect many of these changes are going to stick. Like grading cases through Canvas; taking class notes with PDF Expert; and moving more material to modular video sessions. I think even weekly online tutorials/cafes can become a permanent part of the course.

Hope some of this is helpful.

Charles

HARIKESH NAIR, Professor of Marketing,

ALLAN THYGESEN, Lecturer in Management, “Monetization”

Overall perspectives:

1. Students have been surprisingly engaged, and quite willing to share and “raise hands”, much more than expected.
2. Online learning works. Even for participation-heavy, case based classes. This is scalable. We have definitely turned a corner in mba-teaching. It does not make sense to go back to the “old model” even if covid recedes.

What has worked for me (Harikesh) personally:

1. Co-teaching w/ a partner has been awesome. It helps us play off each other’s strengths, brings variety onto the online classroom, and also gets me a break (as online teaching is quite energy sapping).
2. The online format has allowed Allan to bring into the class some amazing guests: Christa Quarles, ex-CEO Opentable; Mark Thompson, CEO of NY Times (joining end of the month); Jackie Reses who runs Square Capital; Kevin Meyer, Chairman, Disney. We usually run the case in the first 1 hr and have the guests react and interact in the latter 30–45 mts. Its likely all of these folks may have joined under the offline format, though Allan can say more. We can do more of this under the online format, and deepen our engagement w/ the business leadership community.
3. Tech: setting up a big screen monitor at home. Split student interaction window and slide decks onto separate monitors (more manageable). Standing while teaching (more energy).
4. TAs: Tech help and TA help has been incredible, and frankly essential. The cognitive lead of managing multiple devices while simultaneously teaching is high. The help allows us to focus on teaching.
5. Simplicity: After trying multiple devices etc, decided that simple is best for us. We do slides, some simple polls and some breakouts. Nothing more. It is hard to manage many things in real time.

What has not worked as much:

1. Building a personal connection w/ the students as Robert S. mentions below.
2. Keeping the bottom percentile of non-sharers engaged.

ROB SIEGEL,

Lecturer in Management, “Entrepreneurial Finance”

My $0.02:

1) The design of the teaching space has been a big part of the experience. I have my home office decorated with Stanford paraphernalia (pictures, banners, Deb Gruenfeld’s book, pictures of GSTs, etc.) to try create a feel of our school, and I have it set up such that I can stand up when lecturing and then I can sit down if I want to use the Zoom whiteboard feature. Standing while lecturing has allowed me to create movement and motion which helps keep the students engaged with what is on their screen. It’s not as good as running up and down the aisles in G101, but it’s better than just sitting.

2) The technology setup has been critical; I have two 27" monitors that allow me to have open multiple windows (Zoom gallery view), any slides I am using, a WhatsApp window to text with TAs, the chat window in Zoom, etc. I also bought a $200 4K-resolution camera that shows an order of magnitude improvement in my video vs. what is in most notebook computers.

I also put my cell phone on a selfie stick during my sessions so that I can see exactly what the students are seeing, and I can switch to cellular if there are internet problems (that has happened in three of my 29 sessions so far this quarter). The switch was seamless each time I had to do it.

3) I have tried to mix up class sessions with different operating rhythms; sometimes I have used breakout rooms, sometimes I have used polls, etc., to help keep the students engaged.

4) Guests from all over have made time for us; we had Michael Dowling (CEO of Northwell Health) Zoom in from his kitchen table one night while he ignored calls from Governor Cuomo in NYC; we had Ryan Lance (CEO of ConocoPhillips) the day the price of oil went negative, etc. Guests are willing to engage in the virtual setting and have said that it was much more energetic and dynamic than they expected.

5) The downside is that it takes longer to get through material than in a classroom setting; the medium makes things a bit slower. I have found I am getting about 25% fewer students participating in a class session (a lot of this is similar to Keith’s comment about not getting to see body language and facial expressions).

6) Also per what Keith said, TAs are critical — they queue up whom I call on next, and they can also speak to me in my ears if I need to hear something (I wear airpods, and they can channel Holly Hunter from Broadcast News and tell me what to do).

7) The support of the FAs and Teaching and Learning Team has been awesome. I could not have taught three classes this quarter without their support.

I think this is going to fundamentally change how education is delivered at all levels in our world. It isn’t as good as being in person, but the tools enable an interactivity and engagement previously not possible. I believe this is all about “Yes, and…” vs. “Or….”

Best,

Rob

PS I miss the students. I’m doing 3–4 Zoom calls a day, but I know I’ll never get to know these 220 students as well as I would normally in a classroom setting.

PPS I miss my teammates on the faculty, even if only passing each other in the hallways, in Coupa or in Arbuckle.