Tips for a class instructor

So, you've been assigned as instructor for a live-class delivery on the Calibrae LMS. Great!

In this article, we'll run through what it means to be an instructor in a Calibrae classroom and help you get oriented. We'll also suggest some tips about how things work and what to expect. Specifically, we'll look at...

Your assignment notification email and how to access the classroom
Orientation to the classroom
How to run a virtual class session
How to run an in-person class session
How to access / update course content
How to access the class list and manage learners, including awarding attendance certificates
How to view learner progress

Your assignment notification email and how to access the classroom

Once assigned as instructor, you'll receive an email notification with details of when and where the class will be taught, along with quick links to access class resources.

Add to calendar adds the event details to your calendar

Manage the Class takes you to the admin page for this class, from where you can...

View a list of learners enrolled on this class session
Print a class sign-in sheet
View / upload downloadable resources for this class session
View progress metrics for learners enrolled in this class

Manage course content takes you to the course content page, from where you can

view and edit the teaching / learning content that you will present
view and mark assignments submitted by your learners

View the Class (Learner View) takes you to the virtual classroom, from where you'll join with learners enrolled on this class session.

Orientation to the classroom

Once in the virtual classroom, you and your learners will have pretty much the same experience.

The welcome message

The welcome message, authored by the course author, provides initial orientation to the learners. It typically comprises course objectives and initial instructions on what learners should do.

The webinar room

If you are teaching remotely, click either of the Join Webinar buttons to open the class webinar room - the place where you'll meet with and instruct learners in your class.

If set up with a Calibrae meeting room, the webinar screen (powered by Jitsi) will open in the main display area. Note...

the option to display the webinar Full screen
the drop-down list of break-out rooms, handy for group work. Each class has 5 break-out rooms by default, with you and your learners being able to move freely between them.

Jitsi provides all the conferencing tools you are used to: screen share, messaging, raised hands, and more. For more information on using Jitsi, see

If the class has been set up with a third party meeting room (like Zoom, Teams, WebEx, etc), the webinar screen will open in a new tab.

Course content navigation

Your teaching and learning activities (the content you will probably teach) will be listed in the course navigation pane. Clicking an activity opens it in the main display area. Activities may include...

slide decks, videos, office docs, web pages, etc - content that you will present to the group and use to illustrate the principles you are teaching, or they may be
exercise type activities that you'll direct your learners to work through independently.

Note how the Jitsi webinar minimizes to the top left of the screen, enabling parties to maintain the conferencing session whilst moving through course content.

Exercises

The course author may have included exercises for learners to work through independantly on their computers. Exercises may be in the form of...

assignments, where learners follow instructions to do something, then submit a response that you can mark (see image below). The course author may have set the required response type as either of...
plain text - for quick one-sentence answers
rich text - for longer answers that may need rich text formatting and structure
file upload - where the learner submits a file for your review (perhaps a word doc, a photo or video)
URL - perhaps the URL of a searched-for website, YouTube video or shared doc from OneDrive or GoogleDrive
automated quiz-type questions that are marked automatically. With automated exercises, you'll be able to view learner progress and metrics. Automated exercises could be...
Question banks - great for posing questions with multiple right or wrong answers
Hotspots - great for visual identification
Categories - great for categorising, grouping and sorting

Downloadable resources

The course author may have included activity-level resources that learners can download. Downloadable resources are typically used as

help guides
additional documentation
exercise sheets for downloading, then working off-line and uploading as an assignment response
sample answers to the assignment
etc

Class specific resources

As well as downloadable resources added to individual activities by the course author, you as class instructor can also add your own resources that will be specific to this class delivery. (See the class admin page.) Class level resources will be displayed to the learner on the main course page.

Group discussion & messaging

Note how each activity has a discussion board through which you and learners can discuss the concepts being taught. Learners can of course still voice live questions in the webinar, but the discussion board is ideal for asynchronous study out of hours.

How to run a virtual class session

A typical virtual delivery might look something like this:

Instructor and learners enter the virtual classroom at the allocated time, and click to Join Webinar to meet virtually in the course webinar room.
The instructor introduces the session and orients the learners to the class.
The instructor takes the learners on a journey through the teaching and learning activities of the course - each activity typically focussing on one short, focussed topic or concept.
Instructors might use the share screen function of the webinar to share a presentation activity with learners, using the presentation to illustrate the principle being taught, or they might
have learners each go to the presentation activity on their individual computers, and have them look at the presentation themselves whilst listening to the instructor.
If the course author has included exercises in the course, at the appropriate moment, the instructor will direct learners to go to the exercise activity and work through it independently on their own computers, perhaps agreeing to meet back in the main webinar room in some minutes. The instructor might first demonstrate how to complete the exercise through screen sharing.
If group work is needed, the instructor might organise learners in groups and direct them to go to one of the class breakout rooms, perhaps to work together on an assignment activity from the course. Course authors might prepare an activity with a collaborative document for the group to work on together.

It is highly recommended that remote instructors use two monitors to deliver a class session - one to manage teaching content and the other to host the webinar and learners. You could open the virtual classroom in two browser tabs (one on each screen) - one for content / screen sharing and the other for the webinar. For tips on how to set up, take a look at https://www.calibrae.com/support/teaching-with-two-screens-for-a-better-webinar-delivery

How to run an in-person class session

A typical in-person delivery might look something like this:

Instructor and learners meet in the physical training room at the allocated building/room location and time.
The instructor logs in to the course classroom and projects the class welcome screen on the big screen. If possible, learners can also have access to computers and log in to the course classroom in order to access class content independently.
The instructor introduces the session and orients the learners to the class, including introducing the virtual content and how learners have access to the presentations and exercises.
The instructor uses the content in the virtual classroom to take learners on a journey through the teaching and learning activities of the course - each activity typically focussing on one short, focussed topic or concept.
Instructors typcially project the presentation activities from the course on the big screen, using each to illustrate the principles being taught.
If the course author has included exercises in the course, at the appropriate moment, the instructor will direct learners to go to the exercise activity and work through it independently on their own computers. The instructor might first demonstrate how to complete the exercise on the big screen.
If group work is needed, course authors might have prepared an activity with a collaborative document for the group to work on together.

How to access / update course content

Instructors are able to edit course content. Beware that changes you make will over-write original content writen by the course author, and will be persist for future classes taught by other instructors.

To edit course content, use the Learner->Admin button to toggle to admin view, then from the course admin page go to the Content tab.

Existing learning activities can be edited/updated/re-arranged, and new activities can be added.

How to access the class list and manage learners, including attendance certificates

Each class delivery of the course has a dedicated admin page through which you can access the class list and manage learners.

The class admin page can be accessed in either of two ways:

From the course admin page, go to the Classes tab, then select your Class delivery from the list.

Or, from your User Menu, select My Schedule to show a list of all your classes, then select the class you wish to view.

From the Class admin page you can:

Access the classroom. View class
Print a class list. Scroll down to the Users pane and click Create sign-in sheet
Email all learners enrolled on the class session
Export a CSV attendance list
Add/remove learners to/from the class. Actions
Add downloadable resources for this class session. Note that such resources are specific to this class and will not be accessible by learners in other class sessions of this course.
Award certificates to those who attended the course. (First remove any learner who did not attend.)

How to view learner progress

To view learner progress, go to Metrics. You'll see a summary page that includes a table of individual learner progress.

Coming soon

We'll soon be adding a tab to each activitiy in the virtual classroom especially for instructors to check how learners are progressing on the current activity. It will look something like the image below. Watch this space!

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