Contributed to the TLCo-op by Alina Holmes, Graduate Research Assistant of the Center for Instructional Innovation and Assessment, 2020.
Chalk Talks are an easy way to engage students, soliciting specific responses or having them ask questions about any part of the curriculum they are learning. It can be an engaging activity to start off class by engaging the student’s prior knowledge, or can be a good closure activity to help see where you, as the professor, might need to go next.
Generally to set up a chalk talk, think of one to three prompts to have students respond to using written language. Students also might respond by starring or checking other student responses to indicate they have the same question or agree with a student’s response.
To do a chalk talk virtually through Zoom use the following steps:
- Enable annotation in Zoom settings.
- Using a software like PowerPoint, create a slide that provides them with room to answer specific questions you’ve asked. Share your screen with students. Students will only be able to annotate the screen if a someone’s screen is be shared.
- Teach students how to use the annotation tool: They will need to hover near the top of their screen, click “view options”, then click “annotate”. Once they click annotate, a separate Zoom bar will pop up that allows them to type, draw, and stamp on the screen.
- Watch them start to produce knowledge as a class before you!
Image Attribution: “Sample Chalk Talk” by Ali Holmes, Western Washington University is in the Public Domain, CC0