Online college courses can lack much-needed student interactions without live synchronous sessions. The need for socialization is particularly important for first-year students and has been of particular concern during the COVID-19 pandemic, when isolation is the new norm outside the classroom. Here we provide a perspective on the use of online synchronous sessions in a first-year biology course that encouraged student-student interactions and employed the culturally responsive teaching approach. We used group assignments, modeled on the jigsaw method, during our meetings and provided extra time outside of the dedicated class period to foster student collaboration, conversation, and social presence. We noted high attendance and participation in the synchronous sessions, suggesting effectiveness of the methods we used in student engagement and satisfaction.

中文翻译：

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在 COVID-19 大流行期间在线教授的第一年体验课程中培养学生与学生的互动。

如果没有实时同步会话，在线大学课程可能缺乏急需的学生互动。社交需求对于一年级学生来说尤为重要，并且在 COVID-19 大流行期间尤其受到关注，当时隔离是课堂外的新常态。在这里，我们提供了关于在一年级生物学课程中使用在线同步课程的观点，该课程鼓励学生与学生的互动并采用文化响应式教学方法。我们在会议期间使用了以拼图法为蓝本的小组作业，并在专门的课堂时间之外提供了额外的时间来促进学生的协作、对话和社交存在。我们注意到同步会议的出席率和参与度很高，