Remote Teaching

Fully online lectures

Fully online lectures are lectures where all students are participating remotely. Faculty can also be participating remotely or organizing the lecture from SSE Riga premises.

To organize online lectures:

  • Choose a meeting platform to use. SSE Riga offers both Zoom and Google Meet.
    Zoom is used for all core courses with more than 100 students. Google Meet is more appropriate for Elective courses or other academic activities with less than 100 participants. More information about Zoom at our Zoom info page. More information about Google Meet at our Google Meet info page.

  • Create a meeting for your course
    Use a single meeting link for all lectures during a single course. If a course has separate seminars, guest lectures etc. then separate meetings can be created for such activities.

  • Distribute meeting link to participants
    It is a good idea to publish this link on your course page on E-Learning platform, as well as in the lecture schedule.

  • Acquaint with chosen platform. Perform a test meeting and check your microphone and webcam quality before first lecture.
    More information about Zoom at our Zoom info page. More information about Google Meet at our Google Meet info page.

Hybrid lectures

Hybrid lectures are activities where a part of students are in classroom and a part are participating remotely.

All steps for organizing an online lecture still apply when organizing a hybrid lecture (see above).

Additional considerations to take into account when planning for a hybrid lecture:

  • You will be presenting to 2 audiences: on-premises students and remote students. Try to make sure that both groups can adequately participate in the learning process.

  • It is important for remote students to hear what is happening in the lecture, both the lecturer and the on-premises students. Either a single microphone that captures all sound in auditorium or separate microphones for lecturer and students will be needed.

  • If your lectures or seminars would feature heavy usage of blackboards - for formulas, solutions, graphing etc. - consider how to make this viewable for both groups of students Taking advantage of smartboard in W32 auditorium is recommended.

  • All SSE Riga auditoriums are equipped with a laptop. Consider bringing a personal laptop as a second device from which you could easier monitor your meeting call and track online students and their activities

  • Contact IT Department for extra equipment that might be needed.

Digital Exams

Digital exams allow students to take exams on their own laptops, at school premises or remotely from home. Digital exams are proctored either on-premises or remotely using specialized exam software.

Digital exams are arranged in each course based on course format, exam material and social distancing requirements. Contact academic programme administration to agree on an exam format most suitable for your course.

SSE Riga uses Respondus LockDown Browser for on-premises and remotely proctored digital exams. To find out more about Respondus digital exams visit our Respondus Exams page.

Remote Teaching auditoriums

See page Remote Teaching Auditoriums

General advice for Remote Teaching

When organizing your courses remotely, it is more important than ever to make sure your E-Learning course page has all the information, materials and activities organized well. To view more information about working with our E-Learning platform visit our Getting Started for Teachers and TAs page.

When you teach online, as students can easily be distracted, you have to make sure to bring enough interactivity to engage them.

The duration of your virtual classroom should not exceed 1 hour and a half. If you have to teach longer, make one or several breaks during session (to allow students and yourself to leave the screen).

Design carefully your scenario and include different types of activities:

  • Run polls/quizzes using Zoom polls or other online tools at random times

  • Direct your questions to randomly selected students during the lecture- it motivates the students to pay attention

  • Run a discussion using the chat

  • Pause your lecture with Q&A sessions using the chat or ask students to use the “raise hand” functionality and open the microphone of a selected student to hear the question

  • Invite a guest speaker

  • Organize group presentations

  • Use breakout rooms

Avoid lecturing for more than 15 minutes in a row. Make regular breaks using the above activities.

Inform students about the rules at the beginning of the session:

  • Tell students to mute their microphone while they don’t have to speak

  • Inform students how they can ask questions (via chat or “raise hand” functionality)

  • Inform students when you will answer to their questions (e.g. “I will make regular pauses to answer to your questions”)

  • Inform students about the recording

Consider asking students to turn on their camera during sessions. This can ensure higher engagement and is good training for typical business meetings being conducted nowadays.

If possible, run your webinar with a facilitator (a teaching assistant, course coordinator…). That way, you can concentrate on delivering your content while the facilitator will help you manage participants’ questions and activities.

Your fellow lecturers can be a great resource who have had experience adjusting to remote teaching. Feel encouraged to contact them for experience sharing and advice.

More information

For more information about how to organize remote courses, contact your SSE Riga programme administrator.

For information about specific IT questions, as well as general IT advice, contact SSE Riga IT Department at itdep@sseriga.edu.