Starting Virtual Meetings Strong

Happy Friday!

I’m here with another tip for your virtual classroom (or non-virtual classroom, this will work for both)!

This week I’m going to talk about Virtual Welcome Slides, which are basically what students see as they come into each google meet. When I taught in person I always had slides up that told students what they should be working on when they came into the classroom. It helped tremendously with getting the day started and allowing me to complete the daily tasks I needed to get done each morning.

With virtual learning I knew this would look different, but I also knew I had to have something for students to work on while we wait for everybody to log onto our meetings. Insert virtual meeting welcome slides!

Each time we start a new session I have a slide up with tasks for students to complete while we wait. First thing in the morning students are completing their daily check in and making sure they finished/turned in all their assignments from the previous day. Before our math block they have a series of review questions to complete.

Virtual welcome slides are simple. I have a short message to greet them and a list of things they need to work on while we wait.

This has been a serious game changer in my virtual classroom. It gives me the opportunity to complete the beginning of meeting tasks, gives students a chance to log on, and it gives the students something to do while we wait.

Another great thing about welcome slides is that they set your expectation as soon as students enter the google meet or zoom meeting. They know what is expected of them and they will live up to those expectations.

My final tip for virtual welcome slides is to keep it simple. My virtual welcome slides look almost identical for our two live instruction blocks. One is specific to the first block and has them fill out their daily check-in. While the other is specific to our math block and gives them a few warm up questions to work on while we wait.

Pro-tip when presenting from Google Meet - always use the from a chrome tab if possible. This allows you to present but go back to the google meet screen without students losing what you were trying to present. It’s also the best way to play videos.

Want another freebie? I’ve got you covered again this week. To get the virtual welcome slides CLICK HERE. There are multiple background options with this freebie, but you can also change it to be any background you’d like.