I wasn’t sure what to expect from my first day peer leading in a virtual classroom, and the experience gave me a newfound appreciation for how difficult it is to teach to a grid of grey boxes. The professor that I am working with is still learning how to use zoom, so we were not able to take advantage of some of the technology that we’ve talked about in our workshop, like breakout rooms and screen sharing. The class was also more of a standard lecture than a time for students to work through problems in the classroom. Thus I didn’t really have an opportunity to help students in the way I was hoping to, but I did have a couple private chat conversations going during the Professor’s lecture in which I helped to clarify certain concepts or problems that were leaving the students who reached out to me a bit confused. I then followed up with those students throughout the rest of the class to make sure they were keeping up and to give them a chance to ask me follow up questions. I think I was of some use to a couple students who were really struggling with the material, but I’m hoping to be able to take a more hands on approach (e.g moderating group problem solving) in future sessions.
