Streaming practice 1

This series of exercises introduces you to the practices of livestream teaching. It’s nothing that radical, but since you don’t directly see the audience, you need to interact with your co-instructor to make the session appear engaging.

Basics of this lesson:

  • There are four role-playing scenarios.

  • First, there is a demo and discussion together.

  • Then, go to breakout rooms to practice with a partner. Practice with each person in each role.

  • Then, we come back to the main room and see polished demos (hopefully from each group, but we’ll see the time)

Not in scope for this lesson:

  • Actual lesson content (use the Sample teaching plan or a lesson you already know or make up something that sounds good for the purposes of this lesson).

  • How to teach well.

  • Technical aspects of making a good screenshare and audio quality.

  • Director and broadcaster related things (but someone will simulate that for you).

Going live

Purpose: saying the first words after a session starts.

You may think that starting a session isn’t hard, and it isn’t. But if it’s extra smooth, it leaves a good first impression. Instructors also often make the mistake of going straight to the topic and not framing the whole session at the start.

You want to prepare so that once you go live, it’s all smooth. The things you need to consider:

  • During the break, review notes and what will happen in the upcoming session.

  • Get everyone not active to turn off their videos.

  • Decide who speaks first.

  • Decide who does what over the next session. (talker, typer, primary, secondary, etc.)

  • Give a natural, motivating intro of the whole lesson, suitable for a wide audience. It should set the expectations for what comes next. Start with a minute or two of broad intro before getting into the actual technical topic.

The roles:

  • Director: person pushing the buttons to go live (could be one of the speakers). Counts down 3 [pushes “back”], 2, 1, [pause].

  • Instructor A: speaks first and leads in to the main program. Engages instructor B.

  • Instructor B: engages when it’s time.

The “going live” process with the director

  • (Director: Announce it’s almost time)

  • (Director: asks everyone else in the call to turn off their videos.)

  • Decide who is sharing screen

  • Decide who is speaking first when you go live and what the first words will be. (These first words are most important and you should think of what you’ll say.)

  • Director: In the director’s panel, configure the “back to” setting, broadcaster audio, and jingle

  • Director: countdowns “Starting in 3 2 1”, (click the button), (everyone takes a breath for zero), then go.

  • Speaker begins talking

  • (Remember that each time you go back live is a good time to review the notes + answer questions)

Exercise Live-1: Begin a session smoothly (10 min)

You will practice going live (but without the director part) in breakout rooms. In the main room, a few groups will demo and a director will cue you to start. Swap and try again

  • Break into groups of two

  • Choose a lesson to practice. For example (not limited to this):

  • Practice giving the first two minutes of the lesson. The emphasis is doing it several times to make it feel smooth.

  • A good strategy:

    • Plan it all in advance

    • Decide who speaks first (A)

    • Simulate a countdown “3… 2… 1… [pause]… [begin]”

    • A starts speaking and asks a question of B to engage them.

    • Brief intro discussion before moving to the technical topics.

    • Stop once you get to the technical topic. (“OK, let’s move on to the main material now.”)

Doing a demo

Demos work great with co-teaching. In this session, we will practice the “talker/typer” system: the talker explains what is going on while the typer does the typing.

Team teaching via talker and typer.

“Talker” and “typer” is one way of looking at roles for a session. This is separate from “primary” (keeps time and ensures overall flow) and “secondary” in lesson preparation. For example, the primary can be the typer, give the intro, and then ask the typer “so, explain to me how we do X.”

See more: Co-teaching

Talker responsibilities:

  • Manage the overall flow and timing. They can keep an eye on the lesson and clock on their screen.

  • Carefully say what the typer should do. Describe it clearly, as if the typer was a student and didn’t know the topic already.

  • Ask the typer “what do you think?” to keep a conversation going

  • Ask the typer “what should come next?” if they ever get lost or wonder what comes next.

Typer responsibilities:

  • Does what the talker says (this slows things down and forces everything to be said). Don’t rush ahead!

  • Should ask questions about confusing points or if the talker makes misses some steps that the learners need to hear. This keeps a conversation going.

  • Jump in to remind the talker about what should go next, etc.

Exercise Demo-1: Practice a demo (10 min)

Stay in your groups of 2. Practice doing a demo for 2-3 minutes. Swap and try again. This isn’t a lot of time, but try to at least:

  • Divide to talker and typer.

  • Do the demo in takler/typer format as described above.

    • You can use the same sample lessons mentioned above

  • Typer should ask at least one clarification from the talker.

  • Talker should ask at least one question to the typer.

Q&A

Q&A is via the notes document, which can be just as or even more powerful than a live Q&A. In this exercise, we do a practice Q&A session.

Considerations:

  • Screenshare the notes so that the audience can see what you are discussing. (It’s good to do this periodically even if there aren’t questions, so people will know it’s being monitored.)

  • Try to involve both co-instructors. For example, one person can find an interesting question and first ask the other person what they think before giving their own answer.

  • If there are many questions you may divide up one person mainly looking for question (and talking sometimes) and the other mainly answering (and looking sometimes)

Exercise Notes-1: Simulate a Q&A via Notes

Divide into groups of three for this one.

The goal is to have two people discussing questions in a notes document while another is adding questions live. (The third person can also possibly be answering some of the question to simulate other helpers). The Sample teaching plan has some sample questions.

Expected steps:

  • One instructor shares the notes

  • Instructors scroll through and discuss the questions

    • Keep in mind that the answers to some questions can be “we will discuss later”.

  • (If using the indicator panel) End once “time” is called via the control panel indicator light.

  • If there is a third person and using live notes, they can go answering questions at the same time the instructors are talking.

Sample questions you can be asked:

Saying bye

Going to a break/exercise isn’t hard. But, since there’s no opportunity to ask more questions, you should make sure that everything is done.

Considerations:

  • Give a wrap-up of the session that is just ending, so that people can unpack.

  • Give clear directions of what learners should do next, for example:

    • Do an exercise (state the goals which should be accomplished by the end), or

    • Take a break and don’t forget to walk around some.

    • When to be back.

    • Update the notes with the info.

  • Someone will be waiting to switch the livestream to break mode. They can’t read your mind, so someone should say “bye” to indicate the session is over. Then, the director will immediately switch to break mode.

Exercise Bye-1: Wrap up and say bye smoothly

Simulate a session ending according to the things above. It’s your choice what session, but here are some suggestions:

Try to include the following bits:

  • Summarize what was just (pretended to be) learned

  • Say what comes next (break or exercise)

  • Some small interaction between co-instructors (asking each other a question)

  • Whoever is talking least adds a description in the notes of what comes next.

Example notes description for going to an exercise:

:::info
### Exercise Cloning until xx:12.
https://coderefinery.github.io/git-intro/local-workflow/#exercise

* Try to complete at least steps 1-7.  We will be using this in the next exercise.

:::

Summary

We went over some of the most common things you’ll experience when co-teaching via livestream. Think about these when preparing your lessons to teach.