Update
Acadly now has Zoom integration, and all our backchanneling features are available in the Zoom-integrated version as well. Plus, all your chats and Q&A are available after the lecture too. You can check out our demo video here.
Question
What’s the most asked question by professors around the world, irrespective of discipline, level or culture?
It’s obvious, really…
“Any questions?”
If only students had a penny for every time they heard us say that…
You may have asked this a few times yourself. Heck, it won’t be a surprise if you’re part of a legion of professors who subconsciously utter the words multiple times each lecture. For many, it’s an almost reflexive, rhetorical question to ask.
So it’s only fair to question how this has been working out so far. Would you say you get enough questions? Lots of quality feedback about what students did and didn’t learn? Are students really throwing up their hands when we prompt them to?
Honestly, do we even get a yes or no response from more than a handful of students?
Of course, it doesn’t really work. A professor once described it to us as the 80/20 Law of Class Participation: 80% of class participation comes from only 20% of all students, and no amount of encouragement seems to be enough for most students.
We used to parrot the 80/20 Law a lot, until one day a professor corrected us — “maybe it’s just me, but it’s more like the 90/10 Law, really”.
Sigh. Let’s try to fix this.
About the #SmarterLectureProject
The #SmarterLectureProject by Acadly is a series where we write about one teaching technique every week and summarise it with a nice, shareable infographic.
If you’re an infographic-only kind of person, here’s our Pinterest page and our Instagram page.
Being a great teacher solves a lot of problems, but not all of them
No matter how good a job you do at nurturing a culture of questioning and discourse, the math of teaching even a mid-sized class of 40–50 students is against you.
30–60 contact hours simply aren’t enough to accommodate roll calls, quality lecturing, active learning and ample Q&A. And time isn’t the only externality you have to deal with.
Students don’t ask questions in class because of many reasons that have nothing to do with you
- The fear of asking a dumb question in front of peers
- Hesitation in interrupting a professor
- Apathy that’s reinforced by staying quiet in other classes
- Habitual last minute test-focused learning
- Lack of encouragement from professors, in general
It isn’t possible to solve all these problems simply by being a great teacher. Instead, you need to reach out and give students new way to ask questions.
This is where Backchanneling is stirring up a quiet revolution… literally.
Backchannels explained
What are backchannels?
A backchannel is a digital conversation that runs concurrently with a face-to-face activity, like a lecture.
Advantages
Backchannels may sound like an extraordinary idea — even a fad — if you’re unfamiliar with them, but their impact has been well researched and documented over the last decade.
1. Greater participation
A study by researchers at University of Munich and Saarland University found that compared to traditional classrooms, those where backchannels were used had 9 times the student contribution (comments) and about 3.5 times as many questions.
2. Richer participation
A study by Harry, Gordon, & Schmandt (2012) found that because turn taking is not an issue with backchanneling, more ideas and perspectives can be shared by students. The discourse is, therefore, enriched with multiple perspectives rather than those of a limited number of students.
3. Greater overall engagement with course content
Research by Elavsy, Milan and Elavsky (2011) also suggests that students who participate in digital backchanneling engage more deeply with course content inside and outside the classroom.
4. It improves the frontchannel (verbal discussion) too
In his 2009 book “The Backchannel: How Audiences are Using Twitter and Social Media and Changing Presentations Forever”, Cliff Atkinson argues that the backchannel enhances frontchannel discourse as students contribute helpful comments that clarify, expand on, or give examples of ideas that are expressed aloud by others.
Won’t backchannels be distracting for students?
The most common concern educators have about backchannels is that it gives students the license to use their devices during a lecture. This could potentially be a source of distraction, it would be fair to point out, but it would be a shame if that stopped you from piloting something that may just be the most effective way to transform the classroom discourse while you teach.
To quote an educator from a New York Times report on backchanneling,
In Exira, Iowa, Kate Weber uses [backchannels] almost daily. “You’d think there’s a lot of distraction, but it’s actually the opposite,” she said. “Kids are much quicker at stuff than we are. They can really multitask. They have hypertext minds.”
Backchanneling with Acadly
Backchannels are not exactly a “new” idea. TodaysMeet, a popular backchanneling platform, was around for almost a decade before it recently shut down.
We pored over plenty of research when we came up with Acadly. Here are five ways — some of them completely unique to Acadly— in which you can create amazing backchannels.
- [UNIQUE] Moderated anonymity: While it’s possible for students to ask questions anonymously, anonymous questions don’t pop up on everyone’s screens till a professor “approves” them. It’s the best of all worlds — students still get to ask you questions anonymously, and you get to ensure no one disrupts the experience for everyone else with spam or irrelevant talk.
- [UNIQUE] “Contribute to Consume”: Some students prefer to “lurk”, or read others’ comments without contributing to the discussion themselves. When you turn on the “Contribute to Consume” option in an Acadly discussion, students don’t get to view comments made by others till they write at least one comment themselves.
- [UNIQUE] Comment Ratings: You can rate every single comment in a discussion with Acadly’s new Comment Ratings feature. Look out for the medal icon next to a student’s comment. Here’s a GIF demo.
- Reactions for the classroom: Students get to react with a “like” or a “thank” to comments. When someone posts a query, they can react with “I have the same question”.
- Mix it up with polls and quizzes: Polls and quizzes are our bread and butter. You can learn how Acadly stacks up against all major Student Response Systems here, or you can take our word for it — it’s pretty amazing.
Tips to keep students on-topic and not distracted while using backchannels
1. Use your Teaching Assistants well
If you’re among the lucky ones who have TAs, task them with the job of keeping the backchannel active and productive. TAs can answer questions on your behalf, and interrupt you on behalf of others.
2. Encourage community
Choose platforms with nifty features such as likes and upvotes, so that students can engage with each other and do some of the answering along with the asking.
3. Give cues
This is the digital version of asking “any questions?” Let students know when, and what kinds of questions you’re expecting.
4. Provide feedback
How you participate on the online forum has a huge impact. Be clear, concise and intervene at the right time.
And there you have it!
If you’ve tried using Backchannels in your class, we’d love to hear about it in the comments. Follow the #SmarterLectureProject for more amazing tips every week!
With a lot of ❤ from Acadly (promo video), a smart classroom platform that helps you deliver engaging lectures and automate attendance with one-tap, instant roll calls.
