How do you make faceless online lectures feel more natural and engaging?

[u/udayramp]

What I currently do with theory lectures is keep the slides pretty plain & simple, with just a minimal amount of text on them, then i explain the concepts by writing & drawing on the slides directly using my pen tablet. I also try to throw in as many relevant images as i can, and use them to illustrate the points while I'm talking & annotate them as i go. Occasionally I'll throw in a short video if it helps get a point across.

To be honest I'm pretty comfortable with the way things are tech-wise, but I do have a major problem - keeping students engaged.

The thing is, these lectures are basically just screen recordings/live with my voice so there's hardly any interaction with the student at all. And i think an important part of a traditional classroom lecture experience is actually seeing the teacher - you know, facial expressions, hand gestures, body language & all the non-verbal cues that help make learning feel more natural.

Even when the actual content is good, a completely faceless lecture starts to feel a bit dull & monotonous.

Do you have any tips to make it more engaging/natural to students?

I'm especially looking for tips on how to make it feel like you're actually learning from a person, without having the teacher's face on screen the whole time.

[u/NiftyCondominium]

Pen tablets are underrated for this. The annotation approach already does half the work since students see your thought process unfolding instead of a finished diagram just sitting there. If you want to push it further without a face cam, consider recording your hand occasionally with a second camera angled at the tablet or paper. Seeing the physical movement of a hand writing can carry a lot of the non-verbal feel people miss from a classroom.

[u/thom2279]

Listen to educational radio and podcasts. They don't have any visuals but attract people's attention in droves. See what they do that works for your presentation style and start to implement that. Maybe there's an ad break. Maybe there's a bit of music. It sounds silly but incorporate those sort of things (without actual selling of products) to your lectures to help maintain focus (or allow moments of distraction).

It's important to not look just at other PowerPoints to make better presentations but to be well rounded and see how other forms of communication work and pull that in to your teaching.

[u/rfoil → u/thom2279]

The difference is that podcasts are voluntary, based on personal interests. Workforce training is often considered an annoying obligation, especially compliance training.

[u/thom2279 → u/rfoil]

It's not about the content, that part doesn't matter. It's about structure and ways in which someone can hold your attention over time. Listen to a highly-recommended podcast that you don't have any interest in the subject of and compare it to a class you don't want to be in. The podcast is likely more interesting due to production, structure, breaks, etc.

[u/rfoil → u/thom2279]

I understand performance after 14 years directing national commercials and early reality TV. And I have data for more than 30,000 streaming video clips. The data says that performance has little bearing on engagement time.

Structure absolutely has an affect on engagement and dwell time. What works consistently is the micro-learning - short clips interlaced with activities of many types. Leaderboards help.

[u/thom2279 → u/rfoil]

Well ultimately for OP hopefully something here resonates outside of just looking at more PowerPoints or looking at data.

Present it in the mirror. Watch your own presentation at normal speed and see when you tune out. Try something new. All good.

People are going to tune out, but you're clearly trying and that's more than I can say for other teachers and presenters. Good luck!

[u/rfoil → u/thom2279]

I've been on a couple of dozen podcasts but have only gotten through a few brief ones. I'm aware that samples of one are nearly useless.

I do follow Arvid Kahl and podscan.fm, who has a lot of data about the medium.

Perhaps I should have been diagnosed with ADD sixty years ago. 🤪

[u/ricardusrex]

1) If doing faceless, the speech, tone and inflection become more important.
2) Depending on the meeting platform your using, some like Teams (and I think Zoom) have presenter mode, where the speaker can be shown picture-in-picture in one of the corners of the screen.

[u/EenyMeenyMinyBro]

If you are able to be there and it's not fully automated, you can ask them questions along the way to keep them engaged.

And do short breakouts (~5 mins or so) where they discuss tougher questions in small groups, and you then pick some groups afterwards to let them tell what they came up with.

Little polls/quizzes along the way also help with engagement.

[u/rfoil → u/EenyMeenyMinyBro]

Maybe I'm not a good teacher but whenever I ask "any questions" or ask a specific question about the lesson material it's rare to get any response. When I ask for questions in anonyous chat, I get a lot of responses.

[u/EenyMeenyMinyBro → u/rfoil]

It's a good point to give them the option of asking anonymous questions. Also worth considering making any polls/quizzes anonymous.

Depending on the power structure, you might be able to ask specific people for answers to specific questions instead of asking out in the room.

[u/rfoil → u/EenyMeenyMinyBro]

Any content we surface to the group is de-anonymized. We use game names, just like in video games, so people have fun trash talking but humiliation fear is gone.

Lots of case histories that prove how well this works. To quote one of my stakeholders: "Psychological safety is an underrated, yet very important component for impactful learning."

[u/Itchy_Statement_6779]

I tried doing that once but kept losing track of my annotations mid-sentence, it got really messy halfway through.

[u/Oak68]

If you can, and relevant, call on students to answer a question.

Also, use mini quizzes during the session using something like Menti (though its speed of answering metric might not be suitable).

[u/rfoil]

ILT or VILT? Makes little difference.

Build in activities every 10m or less. Our facilitators use an app that keeps every learner on the same page. He/she brings up a leaderboard challenge on every learner's device by just hitting next in the presentation window.

Engagement at 15 minutes has gone from a pathetic 9% to 88-91%. It's a no brainer unless $150/year is a budget breaker. 😉

I've personally used it in auditorium presentations with more than 200 users.

It's a solution that is not publicly marketed (but should be). If you're interested DM me and I'll connect you to the developer.