When having a class sharing a virtual “space”, such as webinar platforms, with a chat window and other features, people will figure out how to turn some of the bandwidth into a “back-channel” which supports intra-student communication. Which has been described, in some research, as being worth about 50% of the learning content being presented by traditional means of sage on the stage.
IOW, the backchannel is an important part of the learning process, often including the high retention rate functionality of teaching others the content one is trying to retain. As the group tries to bring everyone along, including the portion of students that are having trouble “getting it”, each student in the backchannel group benefits.
This is rarely the perspective of classroom teachers who must create/engender some form of classroom structure, and manage to present content without a lot of competition and distractions. The method below might be of some use in solving that difficult equation, albeit on a small scale. Or maybe not.
Or would there be some way to create an AirPod virtuous circle, where all the students could have an audio back-channel, not just the text based “chat window”, and even the “teacher” could have some access?
(Click on link below for video in separate window.)
AirPod crosstalk in class TikTok