Best Practices for Instructors
Students should complete 2-3 individual assessments in Extempore before participating in a Sync Group Assessment.
To start, create a Sync Group assessment with only two students per group. This will help the students get comfortable with the experience.
If students are completing the assignment in class (most common), schedule the start time of the assignment at least 5-10 minutes after the class has begun to give yourself time to take attendance and arrange groups.
Walk through each step of accessing the assessment, the waiting room, and how to begin a Sync Group assessment as a large group. We've had a lot of luck projecting these slides to walk through the steps. Feel free to customize as needed.
Consider adding these directions as the assessment description:
Hello! You are about to participate in an interpersonal speaking task with a partner. Please read these directions carefully:
1. Check your camera, microphone, and wifi. Put your headphones on.
2. Look for your partners name and wait until you see a green dot 🟢 next to their name.
3. When you see a green dot, click GO TO ROOM.
Best Practices for Students
Click on the Group Assignment when you're ready to connect with your group. You will be placed in the Waiting Room before joining where you will check your camera and microphone, read the assessment description, and see when your partner(s) is online.
Before joining a synchronous room, make sure that you can see a green dot 🟢 indicating that the participants in the room are online and ready to join. If the signal is gray ⚪, it means that your partners are not present, please wait until it turns green before joining. If a student joins the room and leaves before another student can join, the room will close. Once a room is closed, other students cannot access the room.
If this is an in-class assignment, please remember to wear headphones to cancel out any external noise.
If a student joins the room and leaves before another student can join, the room will close. Once a room is closed, other students cannot access the room. To avoid this from happening, please make sure that you are joining the room once you are given a green signal and if you do join before seeing the green signal, wait in the room for your partners to join. If needed, ask the teacher to reset your room.