October's Faculty Forum: Of Mics and Masks

Dear Faculty Colleagues,

All of us are masked in the classroom this fall, and some of us are using microphones to compensate for the potential muffling, breathing, and projection challenges that accompany masks. For this month’s October 15 (at noon) Faculty Forum, titled “Of Mics and Masks,” we will discuss primarily audio challenges that come with teaching while masked, teaching while capturing content, and teaching while some students are joining classes both remotely and synchronously.

We anticipate addressing the following questions:

• What size class warrants use of a microphone?
• Should one clip a portable microphone to one’s mask?
• How does one gauge student comprehension when we can’t see most of their faces?
• How do we visually express enthusiasm and empathy when students can’t see most of our faces?
• Does “distance learning” begin in the tenth row of a large lecture hall?
• Can one really teach effectively when deploying the strategy of “Zoom in the Room”?
• Should masked faculty use larger gestures?

Join us as we hear from faculty teaching large, face-to-face classrooms, dynamic classroom performers, and masters at interactive teaching.

Some Faculty Forum participants may do some reading ahead of time, including perhaps these tips for teaching with a mask from the University of Michigan and Wake Forest University, which are also linked from the “Transitioning to In-Person Teaching” page of the Keep Teaching website.

Please click this link to register and join us on Zoom! See you on October 15th at noon!

Best,

Andy Jones
Academic Associate Director, Academic Technology Services
University of California, Davis