Online Live, Synchronous Instruction: Highlights from a Review of the Literature, Effective Practices, and Recommendations

Presented by: Dr. Ingrid Greenberg, Online Faculty Mentor Coordinator, San Diego College of Continuing Education

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Ingrid Greenberg’s distance education journey began while teaching in Hong Kong and China where she witnessed the power of radio shows – VOA and BBC – to help students learn English. In the US, she has seen how online education has increased student access and success, especially for parents, busy workers, entrepreneurs, and students. Currently, as the Online Faculty Mentor Coordinator at San Diego College of Continuing Education, she is leading digital inclusion efforts that support onboarding and training 300+ new and existing faculty in serving 40,000 students in fully online, hybrid, HyFlex, and on campus instructional settings.

Session Info:

In this session, participants will reflect on research, revise their thinking about online live, synchronous instruction, and help students rise as they connect and reconnect with learning in online classes. In language teaching classes, teacher-student interaction is typically very high. One way to increase teacher-student and student-student interaction is use of online live, synchronous instruction. For more than five years, online education researchers and instructors have been reporting on language students’ preferences regarding asynchronous and synchronous instruction. Research has shown that online live synchronous instruction using web conferencing with language students can offer opportunities (i.e. build community, increase student engagement) and present challenges (i.e. student privacy, scheduling conflicts). In this presentation, the speaker will discuss a review of the literature of online live, synchronous instruction, student preferences, and recommendations for effective and equitable online instruction.  The presenter will provide digital handouts.

Session Outcomes:

• Identify a definition of online live, synchronous instruction
• Identify opportunities and challenges in the research related to online live, synchronous instruction in language class
• Identify five recommendations for effective online live, synchronous instruction including building quizzes around recordings of live, synchronous class in all disciplines.

Session Resources:

• Online Live Synchronous GREENBERG Updated
• https://bit.ly/3bDiDZd