Thread by @kawaiilovesarah

[discord synchronous workshop demo thread 🧵]

back on my bullshit talking about discord + accessible compassionate pedagogy. i have been fine-tuning SYNCHRONOUS STUDENT WORKSHOPS and i'll show you how i pulled it off in pandemic learning. 💜

2/ the screencap above shows the server classroom, with the Voice Channel active on left-panel (me + students), my powerpoint centered in the live feed broadcast, and my video feed + student listeners on the right hand panel. they can see me, my slides, and each other's avatars.

3/ i start the shop with very specific directions and i SHOW THEM me walking through how to interact with the server (joining the right room, uploading documents, sharing their drafts with each other). they can chime in via audio or text chat on #classroom-live channel anytime.

4/ then it's go time. this screencap shows their AUDIO CAFE CHANNELS, every team has their own private A/V channel to do group work (kind of like breakout rooms). these rooms are AUDIO-focused (not video!) and accompanied by a private text channel to write things down and trade

5/ Word documents with each other. Cafes are named after their TEAM NAMES i had them self-choose in Week 1. So I have "Tiger Cafe" A/V channel + #tigers-private-channel" as their text server. You can LOCK these servers to specific students -- so only Tigers can see Tiger channels

6/ these A/V Cafes work like less chaotic breakout rooms: more accessible, less video feed emphasis, lower framerate and better MH accoms (see other Discord thread). Students can even join by cellphone, as a few students did from different timezones this morning. Text emphasis is

7/ important here for class, ableism, other intersectional reasons. Text as default is normalized on this server and emoji reacts are popular. So you may be thinking, I can't be in all 5 rooms at once! How do I control the synchronous chaos as one lonely instructor? DON'T WORRY

8/ I got you. I had a special "#workshop-one" text server where I could host a sync/async MEGATHREAD of Q&A throughout the live workshop. I would answer Q&A from each team in real time and ALL teams could see this. you can also tag individual teams like "@Polar-Bears" if they

9/ needed pinging. I would be in the Gators Cafe answering questions live, but typing my answers to the #workshop-one for THE WHOLE CLASS, which they could see updating in real time. By the time I got to the Polar Bear Cafe, all their questions had been asked & answered in there.

10/ my class got 10min instructions + demo and then 50min to be in their Cafe with their teammates and be visited by me. no one dropped call connection, no one couldn't upload, no one had navigation problems. These are all SOLVEABLE problems with good planning and good moderation

11/ for students who couldn't join, the workshop RESULT is asynchronous: they had a worksheet to complete (pic attached) of their teammate's draft. They worked live today, but have until Friday to edit, reflect and submit. So not TOTALLY reliant on sync, but it builds community.

12/ the WORKSHOP WORKSHEET was designed to give them something to talk about in the sync shop, but also give them reflection time (metacognition component) after the live session. That way, this workshop executes BOTH synchronous & asynchronously (team talk + post-reflection).

13/ for students who MISSED sync (2/25), the instruction video was recorded AND they can see the MEGATHREAD on #workshop-one. I also sent a reinforcement message that directs them to the recording + Q&A, and reiterates that its ok they didn't make it bc their sheet is due Friday

14/ so the SYNC component builds community + the ASYNC component is the scored component. this makes it LESS ABLEIST (we can't require sync for marks -- it's too complicated!).

you CAN do workshops online in a pandemic. my students did amazing editing this morning. 💜🤍

15/ tagging accessible pedagogy groups: @CASDW_ACR @CAST_UDL @DisabledAcadem @PhD_Genie @OpenAcademics @AcademicChatter @TeacherOfTheEar @ncte @AccessMaking @HybridPed

pandemic teaching is hard, i'm trying to show you other ways that will build community FIRST - not policing.