Backchanneling in the Classroom

A backchannel — a digital conversation that runs concurrently with a face-to-face activity — provides students with an outlet to engage in conversation.  To earn your badge you must, Create a backchannel for you classroom and post a link to the backchannel and a reflection over how it went in your room.

Ways to Use Backchannels in your classroom:

• Poll students on a particular classroom event or on a decision regarding their learning
• Crowdsource feedback on learning activities and use this input to inform your future instructional strategies.
• Backchanneling empowers students voice and make them feel they are real participants in the knowledge building taking place in the class.
• Conduct informat assessments .
• Assess students prior knowledge about a given topic.
• Brainstorm ideas for a writing project.
• Encourage students to ask questions about anything they did not understand.
• Hold synchronous discussions of video content shared in class
• Organize real time discussions in class.
• Backchanneling is a good way to engage introverts and shy students in classroom conversations.

Some possible options for your backchannel are:

• Today’s Meet
• Padlet
• Socrative