Synchronous Meetings:
Experiences from the Professor’s Prospective 

Barba Patton
University of Houston-Victoria

   Synchronous (singkrәnәss) meetings enable a professor to meet with students who are not in the same physical room with ease. All students can be part of the class no matter if they can physically attend the class or not. Today’s lifestyle and the availability of online classes free students to live miles from the physical campus. Many students earn degrees via online classes and never step foot on the physical campus. The use of synchronous meetings helps to make the online classes easier to utilize than in the past. In addition, today’s online classes can be much more than a glorified correspondence class. The synchronous meeting puts the student on center stage and makes him/her aware of information that might otherwise be omitted if the class was strictly/truly an online class.
     The Internet has lead to these synchronous meetings. Although the internet is widely used today in business, education and as pleasure, it did not become a technology mainstream until after 1992. However, it was developed and ready to use a few years earlier. By 2000, millions were using internet. Prior to early 2000’s many online classes were just extensions of the old correspondence classes via the mail service. During the last five years we have witnessed the addition of graphics and audio to websites. The interactive component is almost a toddler in this technology age. However, it is growing at a rapid pace. During the last few years, technology has been improved so graphics, video, interactive components, audio, etc are common place. Each of these components plays an important part in synchronous learning.
     We think of synchronous meetings as something new and very technological, in reality we have had synchronous learning as long as there has been communication. Synchronous means occurring simultaneously, working at the same rate and in the same period of. Technology has just made it possible for the participants to be in different locations and this aspect is fairly new to the real time instruction. Many of the technologies designed today seem to remove the human involvement however; synchronous tools place the participants on center stage. If willing participants are able to share, collaborate and learn. The use of synchronous learning can be exciting and fruitful for everyone involved. Synchronous learning technology has a learning curve which is almost flat as participants can be proficient using synchronous learning in a very short time. After, one or two short sessions everyone seems to be performing like pros.
     The uses for synchronous meetings are virtually endless. It can be used anytime or place that two or more people who are not in the same physical location need to communicate. Unlike the traditional meetings the synchronous meetings allow participants to be across town, state, country or even continent. If desired there can be meetings 24/7. This flexibility and convenience afforded in the synchronous classes also carry some serious liabilities. A sense of disconnection and isolation is a major concern. Experienced distance learning educators have stated that motivating their students is a major problem. They further believe that Web-based courses just lack the energy of the traditional face to face classes thus putting a burden on the instructor to bring life into the class (Finkelstein, 2006)

Experiences Using Synchronous Meetings in the Academic Setting

     With the constant need to be accessible to students and students having more and more responsibilities outside the campus, the academic world is striving to meet the needs of the students (Anagnostopoulos, Basnadjian & McCrory 2005) Synchronous meetings seem to be a possibility as a partial answer to those needs. Unlike the traditional classes with all students being in one room the synchronous meetings or classes allow students to be across campus, town, state, country or even continent while attending. The time factor can be as open or closed as the host desires. If desired there can be meetings 24/7, as meetings can be at anytime of the day or night which is agreeable with the professor and students. Although many of the meetings occur at non-traditional times, meetings during mid-morning and afternoon have also been utilized and proven to be very fruitful.
Synchronous meetings can be used for

• Virtual office
• Instruction
• Collaboration
• Study sessions
• Brain storming
• Support
• Extensions

     Virtual office is especially useful as many of today’s students have so many other responsibilities. Many are not the traditional students who are continuing his/her education immediately after high school. The professor can have office hours as late or early as he/she desires (Wang & Beasly 2006). It has been found one semester that office hours work best about 9PM and 7AM, while another semester the best times may be 10 PM and 6 AM. The timing is really a trial/error task. Listening to students’ requests to set the most productive times is also a good indicator of optimum times to hold office hours. Virtual office can be private or if the professor (host of the meetings) desires to allow more than one student in the room at a time that is also a possibility. The virtual office also allow the professor to hold office hours from his/her home without providing such personal information as cell, home phone or address.
     Instruction using synchronous meetings is awesome. One way is for the professor to make a presentation slide show. While the students sit at a PC, they can see the slide and hear the professor lecture. Another method is to use the whiteboard in connection with the slides and the professor is free to mark on the slides as needed. For example, recently in an online math class the problem being discussed a chart made the solution much more visible for the class. The first slide gave the problem, the next one gave the problem in a smaller text along with an example on the chart and the next one had the chart which was completed during class using the whiteboard. A tablet PC is especially useful with the whiteboard in a math class. This is almost the same as everyone being in the same physical classroom while the professor is writing a problem on the board. Students appreciate a hard copy of the problems to use during the synchronous meetings therefore, an email is sent to the students 24-48 hours prior to the synchronous meeting. Just as students have an opportunity to prepare for a class using a textbook, the students use the emailed problems to prepare for the meeting.
     Collaboration is another feature of synchronous meetings. Groups of students can collaborate while the professor serves as a facilitator or just in there in case he/she is needed. This type of group work is especially good if the class is an online class and the students do not have a chance to meet face to face. While working in a collaboration type setting, it is also possible for members of the groups in addition to the presenter to share documents simply by the host granting that member privileges. This type of collaboration again means that distance is not the barrier that we thought. We are able to share not only the audio but graphics, documents, etc at same time (synchronously) as if we were in the same room when in reality we may be even be continents away.
     Study sessions can be most fruitful using the synchronous meetings. Professor lead sessions helping students to prepare for certification tests can be trying for both the professor and the students. One of the best parts of having these sessions utilizing synchronous meeting is the ability to have them late at night or very early in the morning in order to accommodate the needs of the students. Students have even said, “It is just like meeting on campus but I can be in my PJ’s.” Sessions of this nature are usually optional and students usually have better attendance when they are able to attend at times which do not conflict with school, work and family obligations. Many of the student who need these sessions have many time constraints therefore the synchronous meetings are a very welcome method of studying.
     Synchronous meetings are excellent for brainstorming. Students often are more willing to contribute to the cause when they do not have the all the eyes on them as in the classroom. To reduce stress, students can even be allowed to use pseudonym or an alias. The professor can ask for identities if needed via email, etc. (Branon & Essex, 2004). These brainstorming sessions seem to draw contributions from the shy students. Often the contributions would have not been expressed in the traditional classroom. These shy students do not seem to realize that they, too, can add valuable contributions.
     Extensions are very easy as the professor can move beyond the expected or required and work with the students who are capable and desire to do more than the minimum expectations. As with collaboration and sharing, these extensions can be most fruitful.

Practices Which Make the Sessions More Manageable

     One practice which has been extremely valuable is having a specific time for equipment check and a short practice session with the software. This has given the students more security and resulted in less time lost to setting up or adjusting their equipment. This equipment check was available to the students prior to the first synchronous meeting.
     If the professor or presenter will re-start the computer just prior to entering the meeting room and not have other windows open, usually the meetings will have less technology problems. It is also true for the students’ computers. If the computer has too many windows open, often it will not function efficiently as possible.
     All visuals should be of a format which is easy to read and easy on the eyes (Clark & Kwinn, 2007). You do not want the synchronous meeting to be viewed as an eye test. Always use font size of 18 or larger. Occasionally if you must use something smaller, be sure it is to help the student to locate an important aspect on a page or something similar but definitely not text the student must read. Selection of the proper fonts is very important. Proper fonts will be ones which are eye appealing and easy for the reader to read. Simple straight line fonts are usually better especially if the meeting is going to be lengthy. The fonts i.e. Ariel do not seem to create the fatigue that some of the fancy ones do. Fancy script will be distracting and create fatigue.
     Another strong suggestion is to keep the slides clean. Cluttered backgrounds can be distracting to the students. Use soft pleasing to the eye background. Avoid using white backgrounds with dark lettering or dark background with white lettering as it seems to cause one to have eye fatigue. Simple slides are usually more effective than ones with a great amount of information. You do not need everything you are going to say on the slide, remember that the students can read. The slide should be just an outline of the information or just a few of the important words concerning the topic.
     Students are asked to think about what they are planning to insert into the conversation before they actually make the interjection. Since I usually teach math classes with this media, many of the examples are math oriented. If they become familiar with the matrix below it and use it, the synchronous conversations become much more focused. If their interjection is ”Urgent and Important” then, the student needs to speak up at this time. If it is “Not Urgent/Important” then this will wait until the appropriate time which is usually at the end of the class when students are given an opportunity to add. It comes in the” Unimportant/Urgent” category; the problem needs to be addressed as quickly as possible to avoid distracting peers. It does not take long for the entire group to lose their focus thus the meeting has lost is value. Lastly, if it is “Unimportant/Not Urgent” most likely the student needs to re-focus or leave the meeting. It is only going to create problems for everyone.

     In order to keep the conversation, flowing at the optimum speed, students are urged to use a few signals such as “?” for I have a question, please allow me to speak or “!” I would like to add something to the conversation. When the participants want to type in a question, it is best to only type in a few words, hit send and proceed by repeating the few words, send mode until the entire sentence is completed. This will allow the rest of the group to have the questions as it is sent rather than wait until the entire question can be typed in. (Branon & Essex).
     In small groups of six or less, it is very good for each person participating in the meeting to have the ability to speak however; in larger groups it is much easier if only the professor has speaking privileges and all the students type in their input (Barnes 2003). Each professor will have preferred numbers as to how many students to grant speaking privileges and when to go to the type in mode; it will still vary from meeting to meeting. The author has found the ones given to be a good rule of thumb to follow. Even with only one person speaking the signals help to keep the session more organized.

     The use of the symbols is almost the same as quick text. The symbols are intended to signal the presenter and participants that this person needs to be granted the privilege of communicating with the group. These quick texts are also intended to express emotion.

     Online classes have so many advantages as to scheduling, etc for the busy person who has many other responsibilities. According to Haefner, this flexibility and convenience afforded in the synchronous classes also carry some serious liabilities. A sense of disconnection and isolation is a major concern. Experienced distance learning educators have stated that motivating their students is a major problem. They further believe that Web-based courses just lack the energy of the traditional face to face classes thus putting a burden on the instructor to bring life into the class. It is up to the professor and the class working together to make the sessions successful. The use of emoticons and quick text helps to rid the class of some of the disconnection and isolation. They can be used by either the professor or the students or both. The charts above have a few of the more popular ones or ones which would be appropriate in the classroom setting.

Advantages and Disadvantages of the Synchronous Meetings

    Replacing or supplementing the traditional with synchronous meetings whether it is virtual office hours or instruction does not require a fee such as the cost attached to phoning long distance across the country or continent. Assuming the student has assess to a computer with internet, there are not additional costs. This is a definite positive for the student.
An additional advantage of the synchronous meetings is that when used as the beginning of an online course, it helps to help a friendly and social atmosphere. This is very valuable as the students progress through the semester (Lin & Lee, 2003).
Of course, there are drawbacks as well as positives in synchronous meetings just like other aspects. Since many of the students never see each other, they do not recognize their peers even if they meet face to face. This also means there are no unplanned chats in the snack area, no chats after or before class, no conversations as peers walk to and from class, no serendipitous meeting on campus or even in the local grocery store, and few exchanges between student and professor after class. In addition, to the drawbacks mentioned there is the fact that one can not see the others therefore there is not any body language (hand gestures, facial expressions, etc.) to help the receiver understand the speaker’s message. However, the use of emoticons as discussed earlier can alleviate some of this burden.

In Conclusion

 “Synchronous online sessions cannot equal the subtlety, the humor, the energy, and the excitement of the real life classroom, but it affords more immediacy than asynchronous (posting on chat boards, voice mail, emails, etc) communication alone” (Haefner). Dialogue and conversation are by definition immediate interchanges, are synchronous. Dialogue and conversation have been an integral part of teaching and learning since humans began communicating. “Immediate interchanges (synchronous) have an energy and earnestness that can't be matched by deferred responses, delayed replies” (Haefner). The synchronous meetings will become easier with time for both the student and the professor. The improvement of internet service will also be a plus for the synchronous meetings. At present many have to rely on dial up services and between the delays and the dropping out, students and professors alike become very agitated.
Synchronous meetings may not be the panacea to solve all the distant education problems however; it has good prospects in the early years of the twenty-first century. 

References

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Author’s Note: Much of the information in the paper is a result of experiences using the synchronous meetings over a period of several years. The author does not make any claim to being an expert, just someone who has tried synchronous meetings and has been successful.