This article is part of a larger series on Remote Teaching Resources See related Tips for Teaching with Zoom and Zoom Video Conferencing Netiquette. For additional support, please contact [email protected].

Zoom is a video conferencing tool available to all members of the Azusa Pacific University community.

General Questions

1. What is the difference between Canvas and Zoom? Canvas is APU's learning management system (LMS). Zoom is APU's video conferencing platform. You can schedule a Zoom meeting in Canvas. Learn more about how to use Zoom in Canvas.
2. How do I get a Zoom pro account as a faculty? Go to https://apu.zoom.us/. Click on Sign-in. Sign-in with your APU Net ID and Password. All members of the APU community will be automated assigned a Zoom Pro license.
3. How do I create Zoom meetings directly from Google Calendar? You can easily schedule, join, manage, and customize meetings from Gmail and Google Calendar by installing this Zoom for GSuite Add-on.
4. How do I share my screen in Zoom? In your class meeting, you can share your entire desktop, a specific application, a portion of your screen, Whiteboard, audio from your speaker, content from a second camera, or a phone screen (iPhone/iPad). Learn how to share your screen.
5. What is a Waiting Room and how do I use it? The Waiting Room feature allows the instructor to control when students join the class meeting. You can admit students one by one or hold all attendees in the waiting room and admit them all at once. Learn more about Waiting Rooms.
6. How do I show a video with all my students during a class meeting? To show a video during your class meeting, you'll need to share your screen where the video is playing as well as share computer sound. Learn how to share your screen.
7. Can I record my Zoom class meeting? While faculty are free to record their own lectures, recording student images or contributions is not allowed without special permission. Learn more about securing permissions before recording your Zoom class meeting.
8. Can someone walk me through how to set up and run a Zoom class meeting? Absolutely, you can email [email protected] and one of our professionals can do a Zoom practice session with you.

Zoom Breakout Rooms

1. What are Breakout Rooms? Breakout rooms allow instructors to split a Zoom class meeting into small group rooms. Instructors can choose to split students into breakout rooms automatically or manually. Instructors may enter any breakout room at any time and switch between them. Learn how to manage Breakout Rooms, including how to enable it and pre-assign students to breakout rooms.
2. How do I use Breakout Rooms? Breakout Rooms are great for small group work and discussions. Sample scenario: After lecturing on a topic, provide students one or two discussion prompts/problems to work through in their breakout room. After 5-10 minutes, students will report back to the larger group.
3. Additional considerations:
   • Prime students to go from passive to active mode. If they’ve been watching the instructor talk or present, they may have slipped into a passive observer role. Alert them that it’s time for them to take an active role!
   • Instruct students to unmute their microphones and introduce themselves to their group when they arrive in their breakout rooms.
   • Review the group activity instructions before placing students into breakout rooms.
   • Give students access to a copy of the instructions to use while they are in breakout rooms. You can share the instructions in the chat or a link to the document.
   • Go from room to room to check in on each group's progress (akin to walking around the classroom).
   • Designate a time to come back to the main room. You can also end breakout rooms to bring everyone back to the main room.
   • Read Using Breakout Rooms with Less Stress and Better Results for more ideas.

Zoom Polling

1. What is Polling? The polling feature allows instructors to create single choice or multiple choice (multi-select) polling questions. Instructor will be able to launch the poll during their class meeting and gather the responses from students. Polls can also be conducted anonymously, if teachers do not wish to collect participant information with the poll results. Learn how to enable and manage Polling, including how to create, launch, and download a report of poll results.
2. How do I use Polling? Polling is one approach to employing active learning in your Zoom classroom. Instructors can use polling to a) actively engage students during the entire class period, b) gauge their level of understanding of the material being presented; and c) provide prompt feedback to student questions. Sample scenario: After lecturing on a topic, use the polling feature to assess student comprehension before moving to a new topic.
3. Additional considerations:
   • Provide clear instructions on how to use the polling feature.
   • Do not make the questions overly complex.
   • Keep the number of answer options to no more than five.
   • Allow sufficient time for students to answer questions.
   • Allow time for discussion between questions.
   • Position the questions at periodic intervals throughout the presentation.
   • For more robust live polling/quizzing tools, try Kahoot, Quizizz, Polleverywhere, or Quizlet. Send them the link to your pre-prepared quiz in the chat feature of Zoom and ask them to take the quiz.

How do I record, edit, and share my Zoom class meetings?

Before your record your Zoom class meeting, please be sure to make sure you have secured student consent.

1. Record: You can record your Zoom class meeting and save the recorded files to your desktop.
2. Edit: As an option, you can edit the recording (adding graphics, music, credits, etc.) using your favorite video editing application. Suggested free apps: iMovie for Mac users, VSDC for PC users, or DaVinci Resolve 16 for both Mac and PC users. Since editing videos take a lot of computing processing power and memory and can be time-consuming, we recommend only editing videos when absolutely necessary.
3. Share: You can upload your recorded file to your APU Google Drive or YouTube account. Please note the sharing permission to make sure only students in your class can view the content.

How can I avoid "Zoom fatigue" or being "Zoomed out"? How do I help my students do the same?

1. According to researchers from INSEAD and Clemson University, Zoom fatigue is "an array of physical and psychological factors that combine to make our synchronous online communications less effective and wrought with discomfort."
2. First of all, don’t be tempted by Zoom to revert to the "sage on the stage" approaches to teaching. As faculty and students learn to learn in this environment (including experiencing students' initial lack of engagement) it would be easy to fill the space with “teacher talk”. While talking is part of what we do as teachers, inadequately involving students will make the Zoom environment feel wearisome to both the teacher and the students. (Teaching F2F also becomes wearisome with this kind of imbalance, but adding the anxiety of learning and using a new educational platform like Zoom will likely add to the fatigue.
3. Take some kind of break every 30 minutes. That might be just asking students to stand and stretch, or take a deep break. Or ask them to walk around the room they are in twice, and some back (“in 2 minutes”).
4. One thing worse than Zoom fatigue is when a class is completely asynchronous, having no connection to other living, breathing, moving human beings. Use multiple elements, including both individual student work, students work in small groups, and alternative ways to present content.
5. Learn more about Zoom fatigue:
   • Why is Zoom so exhausting? - Chronicle of Higher Education
   • Why We’re Exhausted by Zoom - Insider Higher Ed
   • Are you a victim of Zoom fatigue? - Inside Higher Ed

Additional Tips

1. Consider having a co-host: As the host, you control all aspects of a Zoom class meeting. The co-host feature allows the host to share hosting privileges with another user, allowing the co-host to manage the administrative side of the meeting, such as admitting students in Waiting Room, managing participants, and starting/stopping the recording. Instructors can identify a student who can serve as a co-host focusing on the administrative functions, freeing the instructor to focus on teaching. Learn more about co-host controls, including how to enable a co-host.
2. Consider having a chat monitor: Teaching in Zoom requires strong multitasking skills (presenting content, managing participants, monitoring chat, etc.). One way to lessen the cognitive load is to ask/designate a student to be the "chat monitor." This student would pay attention to what's happening in chat, and every so often, the instructor can ask the student if there are any issues and/or questions that need to be addressed. Learn more about chat features.
3. Consider appropriate chat controls: As the host, you can control which meeting participants are allowed to chat with. We don't recommend disabling the chat for all students because this will limit interactions and engagement in the class meeting. If you think students are having inappropriate private chats with each other during class meeting, then you can disable private chat. Learn more about chat controls.

Official Zoom Guides

1. Zoom Help Center
2. Getting Started
3. Tips and Tricks: Teachers Educating on Zoom
4. Zoom for Education: Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions
5. Top 20 Zoom Resources

Unofficial Zoom Guides

1. Using Zoom to Teach - University of North Carolina
2. Engaging your Learner with Video in the ClassroomZoom Best Practices and Tips - Western Illinois University
3. Zoom: Teach Online Class Sessions - University of Minnesota