Instructor Best Practices

When delivering a class, here are some common tips you might consider. These techniques will help the class to run more smoothly.

It's helpful to make sure students have run the Connection Check prior to attending class. There are very few instances where a student connection doesn't work, but occasionally a corporate firewall or an outdated browser can cause delays in the classroom. So, to avoid lost training time, remind students to run the Connection Check from their invitation email prior to class time.

One easy way to do this is to create a scheduled notification (either in the Create Class Wizard or with the Edit Class page) that automatically goes out to students one day before class. You can also review the Students section of the Edit Class page to see which students have already successfully run the Connection Check (specified by a green checkmark in the Connection Check column).

Once you’ve created the class, another technique is to let your students get familiar with the technology BEFORE class start using something like an “Open House”. An Open House is a trial class, usually within a week before the actual class starts, where students who’ve never used the tool can login and make sure they understand it. It familiarizes everyone and helps identify any network issues in advance.

An Open House normally runs for several hours, with each student logging in at their convenience for a 5-10 minute review. Spacing it out like this keeps the instructor from having too many people to work with at once. The instructor can stay logged into the class the entire time but would still be free to do other work when there aren’t any students online.

Doing something like this helps avoid wasting valuable class time because the students don’t know how to login. Also, trying to help 20 students at once not only burns time, but it also means a lot of students are sitting idle while the instructor helps the others one at a time. So, it’s a simple idea but could save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

Another simple technique is to add a few slides with screenshots of the OrasiLabs environment to your class content. By spending a few minutes up front introducing the OrasiLabs terminology and explaining the important controls (e.g., Start/Pause, Expand/Full Screen, Request Help, Clipboard), you can save a lot of confusion during the class itself.