Teaching with Zoom

Best Practices Using Zoom

  • Login to your College Zoom Account and update your Zoom profile. Be sure to always sign in to this account when teaching or conducting college business.
  • Avoid using your Personal Meeting Room to host public events. Schedule a Meeting instead.
  • Use a random meeting ID when scheduling your meeting. It’s best practice to generate a random meeting ID, so it can’t be shared multiple times.
  • Don’t share your meeting link on social media or other public forums, that makes your event accessible to the public. Share links through email and other official communication channels.

Familiarize yourself with Zoom’s settings and features so you understand how to protect your virtual space when you need to.

Conducting Classes in Zoom

Below are some key recommendations for teaching remote classes via Zoom.

Scheduling Meetings

  • Allow only signed-in users to join: this will require meeting participants to sign in using their My Chemeketa login to join.
    • NOTE: you must check the box for this setting each time you schedule a new meeting.
  • Mute participants: Hosts can mute/unmute individual participants or all of them at once. You can also enable Mute Upon Entry in your Meeting settings and when scheduling meetings.

Conducting Meetings

  • Turn off Join Before Host: uncheck this option when scheduling meetings to keep participants from joining your meetings until you arrive.
  • Disable video: Hosts can turn video off for participants if necessary. This will allow hosts to block unwanted or distracting video.
  • Lock the meeting: this will keep new participants from joining your meeting, even if they have the meeting ID and password (if you have required one).
  • Use a Meeting Password and only share with intended participants. Remember that participants can re-share passwords.
  • Remove unwanted or disruptive participants: you can mouse over a participant’s name, and remove a person from your meeting. If you remove someone, they won’t be able to rejoin your meeting. You can toggle your settings to allow removed participants to rejoin if necessary.
  • Disable private chat: Zoom has in-meeting chat for everyone or participants can message each other privately. Restrict participants’ ability to chat amongst one another while your event is going on and cut back on distractions. This is really to prevent anyone from getting unwanted messages during the meeting.
  • End Meeting for All when your meeting is finished. This will remove everyone from the meeting and allow recordings to process. When recording Zoom meetings, try and keep them short. Avoid recording really long meetings (2+ hrs).

Office Hours in Zoom

Use the Waiting Room: this is a virtual staging area that stops your guests from joining until you’re ready for them.

You can customize your waiting room to personalize a message for attendees who are waiting to join your meetings.

IMPORTANT: use this feature if you are using your Personal Meeting room or recurring meeting ID for office hours.

Tips for Teaching via Zoom

  • If you choose to hold synchronous class sessions, it is recommended to schedule your Zoom meetings during the same dates and times that your course would be held on campus.  This will ensure that students don’t encounter scheduling conflicts with other remote classes that are also offering synchronous instruction.
  • Set aside time in your first class to introduce your students to Zoom and ensure that they’re able to connect their audio and video.
  • Give an agenda or plan for each class by Screen Sharing a document or slide at the beginning of class. This gives students a clear idea of how the class will progress, what will be covered, and the activities they’ll engage in.
  • Discuss online etiquette and expectations of the students in your first virtual class and periodically revisit the topics.
  • Promote questions, comments, and reactions from your class. Give a minute to allow your students to utilize reactions, write their questions in chat, or be unmuted to ask their questions live.
  • Divide into smaller groups for a discussion on a certain topic. You can use Zoom’s Breakout Room feature to either pre-assign or auto-assign students into groups for a short period of time so they may discuss things together.
  • Have students be the presenter and share projects with the class. This allows your students to show what they’re working on while practicing their presentation skills. It also allows students to hear from one another.
  • Utilize the Whiteboard or Annotate a shared document and let your students engage as well. When sharing a whiteboard, document, screen, or image, try whiteboarding math problems or have a student use annotation to highlight items such as grammar mistakes in a paper you’re sharing. NOTE: screen sharing and annotation is off by default. Enable these features in your meeting controls or settings.

Student Privacy & FERPA

Below are some important considerations when using Zoom for remote instruction.

Scheduling & Conducting Meetings

Instructors should schedule and conduct separate Zoom Meetings for each section enrollment (CRN).

NOTE: These considerations may not apply if your students would normally meet at the same time for the same content on campus, but are listed in separate courses for administrative reasons.

Using Zoom with Merged Courses

If you have requested that your courses be merged in Canvas, you will need to ensure that you are following the requirements for privacy and FERPA compliance.

Instructors should schedule separate Zoom Meetings for each enrollment section of a given course. So, if you teach two sections of the same course that are scheduled to meet at separate times, and you have requested to merge both sections into a single Canvas shell, you must schedule separate Zoom meetings for each section. If the sections are cross-listed in Banner and meet at the same time, then you do not need to schedule separate Zoom meetings. View more information about merging courses in Canvas.

Zoom Cloud Recording

If your Zoom recordings include students please be sure to comply with FERPA privacy guidelines.

Recordings and broadcasts of student activity online, in classrooms, or in other instructional settings may be used by the instructor and registered students for only internal class purposes and only by the students during the period in which the course is being offered.

Disclosure Statement for Recording during Synchronous Instruction

Instructors should include the Disclosure Statement for Recording during Synchronous Instruction in their course syllabi. Visit our Syllabus on our Syllabus Templates, Samples and Checklist page for more information.

Visit the Zoom Cloud Recordings page for additional information about recording in Zoom.

Zoom System Requirements

While Zoom is a free resource for anyone with mobile devices or computer access, please note that the level of participation available to your students may vary.

We recommend reviewing your planned activities and considering how they will work for students with potentially limited access (ie: no available microphone).

Zoom Bandwidth Requirements

Zoom does have bandwidth requirements to successfully participate in a meeting. Most users that access the internet should meet these requirements.

Here are some tips to reduce bandwidth usage for your meetings:

  • Turn off “HD Video” in your Video Settings if needed.
  • Ask students to turn Video Off when not in use.
  • If using a computer, try connecting to your modem or router using an ethernet cable for faster internet speeds.

Tips for Inviting Guest Speakers

Zoom can pose certain challenges by releasing protected student information such as student names being displayed and/or student participation when inviting a guest speaker to your meeting.

Below are some considerations when inviting guest speakers to your Zoom meetings with students.

  • Recordings that include a guest speaker and students must be protected and cannot be shared with others.
  • Notify students in advance that there will be a guest speaker and who it will be.
  • Mask student names or use aliases in Zoom.
  • Do not allow the speaker access to course/grading information, class roster, etc.

Below are some tips that may help with guest speakers.

Please contact Enrollment Services with any questions about FERPA compliance.

TechnologyVideo ConferencingTeaching with Zoom