Showing Themselves on Zoom

I attend a lot of meetings with my colleagues, and this question comes up way too often: What do we do about students who don’t show themselves on video? It is a definite problem in our world of video-conference classes. As teachers, we want to see that our students are present and engaged. In a live setting, we can see this easily. On Zoom, or any other video conferencing app, it becomes difficult.

How do we make our students show themselves on video? My quick answer is, “We don’t.” That sounds dismissive, I know. That is not my intent. I do want to know that my students are attending to my classes. Instead of asking my students to show their faces on video, I ask them to do something a little different.

I am learning that most of our students are not trying to hide from us. A few are, but not the majority. They are just tired of looking at themselves on the screen…all day…every day…in every class. I get it. I am tired of looking at myself! Some students have other, bigger reasons not to want everyone to see them and their locations. I get that too.

So, I have come up with a few ideas that have helped me know that my students are present and engaged. You will see some of these ideas explained in my previous posts: Reading, Writing, Grammar, and Reviewing. Showing something other than their faces makes showing video more palatable for most of my students. So, I ask them to show their notebooks as they write. I ask them to show their books as they read. I ask them to show their mascots as they compete.

Another idea that has worked for me is to ask my students to turn on their video only when I am looking for ratings or votes. The simple check-in of, “Does this make sense?” allows me to ask my students to show their hands only, and give me physical thumbs ups or thumbs downs. This simple thumb action gives me information. I can re-explain or re-teach to the entire class or just a group, based upon the thumbs I see. After reading a story, poem, or book, I might ask my students to use a hand to give a rating of 1-5, using fingers. This rating system often grows into good and spontaneous conversations about why.

I realize that there are icons and emojis for these things, but I ask for actual hands anyway, and it works. And often, after the thumbs or fingers show up, many of my students choose to stay on screen.