Backchannelling

How to do this 

Backchannelling can be used in classrooms to enable engaging and interactive learning environments. To encourage all students to participate actively, i.e. post a comment, question, concern or the facts/ideas they consider important, backchannelling can be made compulsory component of your class activities.

Here’s how you could implement backchannelling in your subject:

1. Give students time to think about the ‘muddiest point’ or most confusing concept to understand from a lecture or tutorial session. This can be done during or at the end of the session.
2. Have your students post questions in whichever technology you decide to use. It may be impossible for everyone to be able to participate in discussions if the cohort is large, for example.
3. Scan the page at the end of the lecture if time permits. If not, scan the page after the lecture. You can address students’ concerns, queries and comments in the discussion or in the next lesson.

The following screen shot shows how lecture slides are embedded within a Canvas page, followed by a comment box to ignite backchannelling activity:

What tools can you use? 

The following technologies in this activity are supported by UTS:

• Comments Box in Canvas – useful for creating the activity on a Canvas page where the content is.
• Discussion in Canvas – useful tool for a question and commentary. As Canvas can thread a discussion, you can leave a comment/prompt (e.g. post your question here) and the students can write their reflection, questions or commentary.
• Microsoft Teams – backchannelling can be adapted in a group work activity where dedicated channels can be used to collect confusing points, questions or reflections from a guest speaker or activities in collaborative classrooms.

If you would like to experiment, try the following tools (please note, they are not officially supported by UTS):

• Google Docs – this is a good option, however it does struggle with large cohorts.
• Twitter – useful for commentary and sharing thoughts beyond the classroom.
• Padlet – visual tool to post comments by students. Instructors can summarise points by exporting Padlet as an Excel sheet.

When and where to use this 

This activity is suitable throughout the session, at the beginning of each module/week/topic for the following classes:

• Large collaborative classrooms
• Group work
• Guest speakers

How long will it take? 

What research tells us 

Backchannelling can help create a community of practice by providing students with opportunities to learn from each other (Yardi, 2006). It promotes active learning through collaborations between students (Pohl. Gehlen-Baum & Bry, 2011). As well as being able to elicit multiple perspectives on the lesson/topic, backchannelling as a classroom strategy actively engages students in the knowledge construction process through discussion, debate, questioning and commenting (Du, Rosson & Carroll, 2010).

References

• Du, H., Rosson, M. B., & Carroll, J. (2010). Bringing back channels up front: towards an active learning environment. In Proceedings of the 16th ACM International Conference on Supporting Group Work (pp. 333-334). ACM.
• Pohl, A., Gehlen-Baum, V., & Bry, F. (2011). Introducing Backstage: A digital backchannel for large class lectures. Interactive Technology and Smart Education, 8(3): 186-200.
• Yardi, S. (2006). The role of backchannel in collaborative learning environments. In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Learning Sciences (pp. 852-858). International Society of the Learning Sciences.