Leading Online Classes
Methodology
Growing Families’ online classes use the “Flipped Class” methodology. Participants watch each week’s lesson prior to class time and then come together online using an online group meeting platform. Similar to the in-home classroom setting, leaders are welcome to gather a group of friends, family and/or neighbors to join them in an online classroom setting to go through the Growing Families materials together.
Classes listed on the GrowingFamilies.Life website are led by Certified Online Class Leaders (COCL) and come with administrative support which includes: advertising, registration processing, and more. If you are interested in joining the Certified Growing Families Leader’s team, please fill out the Online Growing Families Class Leader form.
Global Hubs - Want to lead an online class
Class Preparation Ideas - Helpful suggestions for leading an online class
Zoom® Tips - Helpful tips for using Zoom®
Video Tutorials - for online classes
If you would like to join an online class visit the many class options on GrowingFamilies.Life
Global Hubs
If you are interested in leading a class – please contact your local hub.
Other Hub - not listed above
Class Preparation Ideas
After choosing which online class to lead, use this Leader’s Place to get an idea of the resources available to you and the email templates for each week. You will lean heavily on these resources for your classes.
Choose a consistent location to host your class each week. Creating consistency helps your class participants.
Choose a place in your home with good lighting. Consider using a selfie light that attaches to your phone or computer. Lighting from behind the camera toward your face is best.
Use a computer, if possible, on a stable foundation. It’s very distracting if you are holding a phone and moving it back and forth between you and your spouse. If you can fit the two of you on one screen and use a computer camera that is ideal.
Position your device near your WIFI router to ensure strong signal with no obstacles (i.e. fireplace) in the way to diminish signal.
Begin your first class with an icebreaker. Have everyone share their names, children’s ages, favorite thing to do as a family, where they live, etc. The more community you create the more meaningful conversations will ensue. As leaders, take notes so you can reference their first names and children’s names in future discussions. It helps to call on participants one by one during the ice breaker since they will not easily be able to cue one another as in a home setting.
You may consider using the first class period as a ‘getting to know you’ and ‘getting to know the technology’ and getting to know the ‘curriculum’ night. This will add an extra night to the schedule but can be very valuable. It does not need to last very long.
If leading a large class ask your participants on the first call to keep themselves on mute to prevent background noise and to unmute to ask questions or to share.
Do not be afraid to sit quietly for a minute after you have asked a question to give people time to speak up. Conversations don’t always come as naturally in an online setting as they do in a living room so give people time to share.
On that same note, you have to be willing to call on families by name. It’s tempting in an online classroom setting as a participant to keep yourself on “mute” and just listen. As leaders, we need to be sure everyone has a voice and opportunity to invest into the discussion. Politely call on couples by saying something like “Hendersons, do you have something to share on this?” or “Henderson Family, did you all incorporate (couch time, blanket time, interrupt courtesy, etc.) this week and can you share how it went?” Once people are talking we can learn from their victories or defeats in a parenting area and it also sparks more conversation.
Have conversation starter questions ready to go before class. You can often find these in the Leader’s Guides or you can come up with them as you prepare for your class. These help guide the discussion and also come in handy if participants seem less likely to share. Leader’s Guides are a valuable tool as they have many discussion questions along with the key principles listed.
Be vulnerable with your group. Share takeaways that impacted your family or spoke to your parenting and ask if other people felt the same way or had takeaways that spoke to where they are in their parenting journey. Vulnerability begets vulnerability.
You may have class participants from all over the nation and on several different time zones. There may be occasions where some of your participants are only able to watch the recording or they may come in late. Be flexible and mention all of your participants even if they aren’t on live to make them feel connected to the community.
Have other people close in prayer. Ask your group “Would anyone be willing to close us in prayer?” to give your group the opportunity to hear everyone’s heartfelt prayer for our community of families.
Recording a session may be helpful for your class for them to listen to it again; maybe someone missed the session because of work or sickness. Out of courtesy we encourage you to ask permission first from each participant in your introductory email.
If time allows, follow up with couples that miss class. Often couples will have something come up and feel like they have fallen behind and can’t rejoin. A personal reach out shows we value them in the discussion.
Mentimeter and Kahoot are online tools that can be used during class to continue to engage your participants.
A class Facebook page can be a great way to continue the discussion in between class meeting times.
Close to the end of your class, you may like to add your class participants to our Growing Families Moms & Mums private Facebook group. Questions are answered by the broader Growing Families community including Contact Moms & Mums.
Zoom® Tips
Those desiring to lead an online class may use any platform they feel comfortable with. However, for consistency sake Growing Families has chosen to use the Zoom® webinar platform. Below are some online leadership tips that apply to Zoom® classes and most major online platforms.
Set up your class in Zoom® as a “recurring class” for the number of weeks your class will be meeting of time ahead of time. This allows for your entire class to have the same call in number and access code for the duration of your class. This is very helpful and prevents accidental call ins to an incorrect/out of date session. If you change to a different day, note that you will have a new link that will need to be sent to your class members.
Keep the class Zoom® link private among your class members.
When scheduling a Zoom® Meeting, you have the option to check the “Require Meeting Password” box as an extra level of security.
When scheduling a Zoom® Meeting, you have the option to go the “Advanced Options” and check the “Enable Wait Room” box is checked to admit only class participants as they join your meeting.
We recommend you use Zoom® to generate the Meeting Id and not use your Personal Meeting Id for classes.
Once all your attendees have arrived, you can easily lock your meeting from the Security menu, preventing any additional attendees from joining.
Prior to the first class, send your class participants a test Zoom® to test their device and to become familiar with the platform. Include any other pertinent information about Zoom® depending on their level of familiarity.
As leaders, you should pay close attention to the group overall. Often people will want to say something or begin to share but Zoom® may have a short time lag and if the leader moves to speak too quickly, often the participant will remain silent. Pay close attention to body language and signs of wanting to share. The “raise hand” button function is a useful tool to share with the class, as a way of indicating they would like to speak.
Introduce the Chat Box to the participants and encourage them to use it during class.
Video Tutorials
Zoom Basics & Leading an Online Class - video coming