Monday, February 15, 2021

Beating Zoom Fatigue Strategy – Silent Meetings

I recently attended a seminar dealing with Zoom Fatigue and I wanted to share one of the tips that were given.

Instead of reading something ahead of time and then meeting to discuss it, devote some of the time to read silently together and then discussing it with an agenda and discussion questions in mind.

At first, I wasn’t sure what the difference was and then realized the big thing was having an agenda and prepared questions ahead of time.

I know that many of my quieter students tend to let the stronger students lead the discussions. Some students just fade in the background but may have useful meaningful ideas that they just aren’t sharing.

By having the questions ahead of time, it gives everyone time to prepare what they want to say or contribute. I know as a participant; I really appreciate this preparation. By just having an open discussion, many people tune out if they don’t think they have anything to share. Others may take over the whole conversation which may put off others. Without an agenda or set questions, the discussion could seem chaotic or pointless.

One of the things we did in this seminar was to participate in a padlet. We were able to put our ideas down and share them. I think this would be very useful for students and would give many a voice that they don’t usually use in the discussions. Then the person could have a turn to elaborate more about what they added.

I hope to be sharing other tips and tricks to combat zoom fatigue in the future. Do you have any? Please share.

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

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