Kansas State University

Classroom Management in Zoom

Student code of conduct and behavior expectations do not change with remote teaching and learning. If you experience a violation of the student code of conduct, escalate within your program just as you would respond to inappropriate behavior in the classroom. Review the guidelines regarding student conduct. This list of best practices and settings can serve as classroom management for Zoom virtual classrooms. The majority of these recommendations will help you manage large classes unless otherwise noted. Links to other resources and tutorials also are provided.

Policies and Best Practices

• Clearly establish expectations from the beginning
  • Syllabus Addendum: see Zoom Policies suggestions at ksu.zoom.us
  • Remind them that the Student Code of Conduct applies for all activities at Kansas State University, remote or otherwise
  • At the beginning of the Zoom session, have an open discussion about the current situation and new learning platform
  • Encourage students to sign-in so attendance can be validated
• Require students to use real names. Tie this to your attendance if they don't use their real name they weren't there
  
  
• Take attendance. Have students respond "here" in the chat (easiest)
  
  
• Mute everyone. Except when you want them to talk
  
  
• Remove offending students from the meeting. This function is found in the Participants Window (See the Managing participants in a meeting tutorial for more information)
  
  
• Escalate offensive behavior to the appropriate K-State unit, just as you would in the classroom
  
  
• Have students practice with the tools at the beginning of the session (Screen Sharing, Chat, Raise Hands, Mute / Unmute Etc.)
  
  
• Record meetings and save chat logs
• • You can record meetings to the cloud, or to your local computer. There might be a wait time for processing cloud recordings, so we recommend recording to your local computer if you have the space on your hard drive. (See the Local recording tutorial for more information)
• If nothing happens, you can always delete them later
• Chat logs can be saved manually or automatically based on settings
• Designate a student or TA to monitor chat to track questions
  
  
• Stop lecture periodically to address questions in the chat. Don't try to monitor chat continuously
  
  
• Keep Manage Participants panel open (See the Managing participants in a meeting tutorial for more information)
  • Monitor who's speaking and Mute or Unmute
  • Turn students' video off
  • Remove disruptive students, or put them on Hold
• Secure your meeting with a Password or limit to Authenticated users (See the Zoombombing Guide and How to Keep Uninvited Guests Out of Your Zoom Event for more information)
  
  
• Use breakout rooms for class discussions, then have one member from each room report out main ideas. (See Enabling breakout rooms tutorial for more information

Recommended Zoom Settings

The recommended settings should be used as a starting point, and then adapted to the needs of your class session. In general, these settings will help you limit distractions and interruptions to your class meeting. Basic and Advanced settings can be found by logging into your account at ksu.zoom.us

Basic settings

• Only authenticated users can join meetings (Potential issues with phone only users)
• Disable private chat
• Enable auto-save chat
• Enable waiting room - This setting is not recommended for large classes because it will require the instructor to "approve" each student before they can enter the meeting room. It works well for classes with smaller numbers of students.

Advanced Settings

• Enable Breakout Rooms. Breakout rooms allow the instructor to split the meeting room into several smaller rooms and assign students to those smaller rooms. This is a great way to facilitate small group work in your online setting. (See Managing breakout rooms tutorial for more information)

Recordings

• Save chat messages from the meeting
• Record meetings automatically as they start

Participants Window

The settings in the Participants Window can be found by clicking the Manage Participants button in your class meeting. Click More at the bottom.

• Mute All
• Mute students on entry
• Limit students from unmuting themselves (Only necessary for large classes).
• Prevent users from renaming themselves

Sharing Settings

Next to the Share button, click the Carrot > Advanced Sharing Options

• Limit screen sharing to host only
• Only one participant can share at a time (If you're sharing, they can't).