Teaching Tips – Page 3 – The OM Blog by Heizer, Render, & Munson

Teaching Tip: Ethics and Chinese Suppliers

Each of the 17 chapters in our OM text ends with an “Ethical Dilemma” made for classroom discussion. In these days of “woke” campuses, we tread lightly, but still believe students need to be prepared to face some unpleasant realities in the world. For example, in Chapter 1, we note how the U.S. sends many batteries to Mexico for the dirty job of recycling. In Chapter 6, it is a coffee spill lawsuit at McDonalds. In Chapter 7, it’s pig slaughtering.

So the headlines about Chinese factories that supply Apple, Nike, and other products now shunning Uyghur workers from Xinjiang provide another example of difficult decisions facing operations managers. The issue, writes The Wall Street Journal (July 21, 2021), is that Western countries are increasing scrutiny of forced labor from the remote region where Beijing has been accused of committing genocide against local ethnic minorities.

Chinese PPE mask producer Hubei Haixin no longer employs laborers from Xinjiang. Lens Technology, a Chinese maker of smartphone touch screens for Apple, is phasing out Uyghur factory workers transferred from Xinjiang.

The about-face by Chinese suppliers that have collectively hired thousands of Xinjiang workers through government-backed labor programs highlights the growing pressure that firms face as Western governments push multinationals to eliminate forced labor from their supply chains in China. Rights groups have accused Xinjiang authorities of mass internment and exploiting what the Chinese government calls “labor transfer” programs to force Uyghurs and other Muslims from the region to work at factories around the country. Former detainees of Xinjiang internment camps are also sometimes funneled to factories around the region in the name of poverty alleviation.

A bill in Congress would ban goods produced by Xinjiang workers in state-run programs unless importers prove otherwise. Companies with suppliers in the region face a difficult choice. They can risk being associated with forced labor or take steps to ensure that their supply chains are relying on other sources.

It is not just the U.S. firms under the gun. France opened a “crimes against humanity” probe into four well-known fashion brands including Uniqlo and Zara. Roughly 84% of Chinese cotton production comes from Xinjiang, and is known as being among the world’s best. Transferring supply chains is no easy task, given that other major cotton producing regions such as Uzbekistan have a checkered past with human rights issues.

To retaliate against foreign pressures, many Chinese are now boycotting Western manufacturers such as H&M and Adidas that have spoken publicly.

Classroom discussion questions:

As head of manufacturing, summarize the situation for your CEO and advise a strategy.
How can firms like Apple control their 2nd and 3rd tier suppliers?

Teaching Tip: Online OM

As an OM instructor, you teach complex concepts. And you’re maintaining situational awareness of a classroom of dozens, if not hundreds, of students. (As of last year, you’re trying to do all of this through a tiny Zoom screen). That’s a lot to handle. Teaching OM class synchronously means you carry an extraneous load including the following:

Remembering students’ names and calling patterns
Reading online chat windows
Keeping track of time
Maintaining eye contact and body language

The key is to focus on what’s intrinsically valuable, writes the Harvard Business School Faculty Lounge (May 11, 2021). Here are some tips for how to do that:

online

Before Class

Create a teaching plan with an adequate level of detail. Give yourself as much structure as you need to feel comfortable, knowing there’s something you can refer to if you do get sidetracked
Develop and sort call lists ahead of time. Come to class with a general sense of which students you’re going to call on.
Clear your workspace of distraction. Even small distractions can really affect your ability to pay attention.
- Ensure a clock is visible; Have a pen and notepad ready; Eliminate background noise; Fix sightline distractions, such as a computer light
Block 15–30 minutes before class. Take this time to review your teaching plan, remember where you are in the syllabus, and just generally focus on the class ahead of you.

During Class

Ask clear, concise questions. If your students aren’t clear on what you’re asking, then you will end up expending time on the confusion rather than on the topic.
Encourage follow-up questions. Challenge and build on student comments, and have your students do the same.
Accept cognitive “gifts”—unprompted, unexpected insights from students that help tie together the lesson.
Acknowledge when you’re feeling overloaded. There will be times when your working memory runs out and you need to stop and process.. For example, say, “I want to put you in groups. I just need a minute to think about how to structure them productively.

Finally, learn to let go of perfection. Have empathy for yourself. Just do the best you can with where you are in the moment.

Teaching Tip: Videos May Improve Student Learning

Jay, Chuck, and I have long been proponents of using videos to supplement classroom teaching and on-line lectures. Our free learning package includes 46 company videos that we created to specifically match our text. We have also filmed about eighty 4-20 minute mini lectures, one for each Solved Problem in the book, that walk students through the steps to solve problems similar to the ones they will tackle for homework. In addition, we have added a dozen video interviews with recent grads who each talk about their OM careers and provide advice to future grads. Our upcoming 14th edition will include 10 Excel model-building videos.

video2

So we were not surprised by a new research study (in Review of Educational Research) that concludes that supplementing existing content with videos can raise student scores. When students got videos in addition to their existing classes, the effect was strong– moving students from a B to an A.

Videos were found to be more effective for skills development, like our Solved Problem videos, than for knowledge transmission. On a skills assessment, they improved student scores by about five points out of 100. For learning knowledge, videos were about as good as existing teaching methods, increasing student scores by about two points. “Shifting the ‘explaining’ bits to videos allows the rich, interactive work to take up more of the precious face-to-face time with students” state the authors.

Videos might be more effective than face-to-face classes because students are able to engage at their own pace and in their own time. The results were robust across different teaching methods (such as lectures, tutorials, and homework) and types of video (such as case demonstrations and recorded lectures). The authors also believe that videos are effective for teaching skills development because videos often show situations more authentically than lectures can, by providing real-life demonstrations instead of artificial class presentations.

“Even after the pandemic ends, college instructors will find value in incorporating videos into their teaching,” says the report. “Ensuring that those videos are of high quality will provide significant long-term benefits.”

Teaching Tip: Explaining a Crossover Chart

The Wall Street Journal (March 23, 2021) tackles a question in many minds, namely, are EVs better for the environment than their gas-fueled counterparts? The researchers find that Teslas generate 65% more carbon dioxide emissions than the Toyotas (because of the metals needed for lithium-ion batteries) before they roll off the assembly lines. Then the tide starts to turn and we hit crossover at 20,600 miles driven. The RAV4 burns gas, refined from crude oil. The Tesla refills with electricity, which still burns coal but is getting cleaner each year with more renewables and natural gas. By 200,000 miles, the lifespan of a typical car, the emissions comparison is no longer close.

wsj article

How quickly the U.S. fleet of 280 million cars and pickups switches to EVs will have a huge impact on the country’s overall emissions. They currently contribute 17% of the U.S. total.

We think this graph may pique your students’ attention when you cover crossover charts in Chapter 7, Process Strategies, or when you discuss life cycle ownership in Example S2 in Supplement 5, Sustainabilty.

Classroom discussion questions:

What assumptions are made in this analysis?
When do you think EVs will take over for gas-powered vehicles in the U.S.?

Teaching Tip: The Vaccination Assembly Line

The Orange County Convention Center, here in Orlando, is a massive and magnificent building. At 7 million square feet (something like 146 football fields over 22 acres), it is the second largest facility of its kind in the U.S. The main exhibit hall alone seats 139, 857 people, enough to easily handle conventions such as MegaCon (68,940 in attendance), NCAA Volleyball Championships (72,000), and Design Week (85,000). But during COVID, the Center has largely sat empty, as tourism and its 125,000 related jobs in Orlando have declined dramatically.

But alas. The Convention Center has a new purpose. Its underground unloading area has been turned into a COVID-19 vaccination drive-thru assembly line! Here is an interesting example of a service assembly line (Ch.9) and a multichannel, multiphase queuing system (Module D) that you can share with your students. I just went through the system this week and was impressed by the operations planning and execution.

Work Station 1: Outside the building, a single channel queue greets you, with the server checking the bar code on your cell phone to be sure you are eligible to enter.

Work Station 2: Inside the building, the medical team scans your barcode again, takes your temperature, and attaches a barcode sticker to your arm. You drive forward 10 yards.

Work Station 3: Your arm barcode sticker is scanned and you are asked a series of medical questions. The brand of shot you will receive is announced (no choice) and you are provided informational material. You drive forward 10 yards to parallel Bays A, B, or C as directed.

Work Station 4: Your arm barcode is scanned again, you get the shot, with band aid applied. You are told to exit the building and wait in your car in the adjacent lot to see if there is a negative side effect. You are to honk your horn if you are ill.

Work Station 5: You sit in the lot for 15 minutes.

Work Station 6: You are scanned again as you exit the property and asked if you had any side effects. You never leave your car.

Total time in system, including 15 minutes in parking lot, is 25 minutes.

Classroom discussion questions:

Clearly the system is efficient, but can it be made more so?

2. Can it be easily replicated in every city?

Teaching Tip: Must-Dos Before Teaching Your Next Online OM Class

While new campus lockdowns and delayed school openings haven’t marked an ideal start to the year, they have reinforced what we likely all knew: online teaching is here to stay. As you reconnect your webcam and ready yourself for the upcoming months of teaching to faces in Zoom boxes, Jay, Chuck, and I want to share an online teaching framework and helpful tips from Harvard B School’s Faculty Lounge (Jan. 18, 2021) called REMOTE. It stands for Reactions, Eye contact, Manageable, Organized, Thoughtful, and Engagement —all critical facets of ensuring a successful online class.

Reactions: Encourage students to use facial expressions or gestures to indicate whether they agree or disagree with what is being said in class. If students can’t access their video, they can use chat functions, polls, or emojis to share their reactions.

Eye Contact: Prioritize personal connections. Have the video of the student who is speaking right in front of you. That way, students feel like you’re looking and talking right to them.

Manageable: Keep your setup simple and practice, practice, practice. Do what makes you best able to credibly deliver the value that you are used to delivering.

Organized: Plan for less and be prepared. Have everything nearby, all queued up and ready to go before class: the specific agenda for the class, any materials—slides, polls, etc.—that you want to use, and a list of students you plan to call on.

Thoughtful: Be considerate of your students’ needs. Online, we need to be more thoughtful about every action we take and how our students are experiencing it.

Engagement: Keep things exciting—but don’t overdo it. Be sure to mix things up. You don’t need fancy pyrotechnics in every single session, and you don’t need to fill every moment of an online course with something new and exciting. For example, one day you might use a PowerPoint slide as your online board and the next day you may use an iPad or a flipchart because you plan to sketch a more complex idea.

Teaching Tip: New Cases in MyOMLab for Spring

Because its not easy to teach and grade OM case studies in an online format, we have added a new feature for the spring term. There are now 27 case studies loaded in MyOMLab–each with 4 multiple choice questions–that you can assign and have graded automatically. Just go to “Create Assignment,” then under Question Source, click “Show Case Study Questions.”

Here is the list of cases from which you can choose:

Ch.1 Zychol Chemical*

Ch. 2 Rapid-Lube

Ch.3 Southwestern University: A*

Ch.4 Southwestern University: B

Ch.5 DeMar’s Product Strategy

Ch.6 Southwestern University: C and Westover Electrical*

Supp. 6 Bayfield Mud Co.

Ch.7 Rochester Manufacturing’s Process Decision

Supp. 7 Southwestern University’s Food Services*

Ch.8 Southern Recreational Vehicle Co.

Ch.9 State Automobile License Renewals

Ch. 10 Jackson Manufacturing Co.

Ch. 11 Premier Bicycle’s Covid Problem–a brand new case set in 2020

Supp. 11 JIT After a Catastrophe

Ch.12 Zhou Bicycle Co.

Ch. 13 Andrew Carter Inc.

Ch. 14 Hill’s Automotive Inc.

Ch. 15 Old Oregon Wood Store

Ch. 16 Mutual Insurance of Ohio*

Ch. 17 Worldwide Chemical Co.*

Module A Tom Thompson’s Liver Transplant

Module B Coastal States Chemical*

Module C Custom Vans Inc.

Module D New England Foundry

Module E SMT’s Negotiations With IBM

Module F Alabama Airlines

Cases with an * have appeared in our Multimedia Library (click case study). All others appear in the text, and can, of course, be assigned with discussion questions.

Teaching Tip: 10 Core Practices of Teaching OM Online

Even before COVID, higher education was becoming increasingly virtual. Once the pandemic took hold, we quickly transitioned to online delivery, and began looking for simple solutions to make OM classes more engaging. Research in AACSB’s BizEd (Nov. 2, 2020) suggests 10 core practices:

No. 1: Provide a variety of relevant and timely feedback. This includes mechanisms that foster student-to-student feedback. Students need to focus on their own learning, believe the feedback is credible, and stay motivated.

No. 2: Keep students informed with regular communication. Send communications on a predictable basis using a standard medium. This promotes consistency and efficiency in the course, enables students to be proactive, increases confidence, and reduces stress.

No. 3: Curate content that is accessible to all students. Provide content, including lectures, in mixed media forms that allow students to read, listen, view, and engage with the material.

No 4: Coordinate all activities and due dates though a central calendar. This helps students manage their own time, take responsibility for their learning, and be accountable for their coursework.

5. Create a 2-way conversation with students. Meet with students both synchronously during live activities and asynchronously in forums. This creates a sense of connection, increases your presence within the class, and builds a trusting relationship.

6. Ensure the students’ user experience is friendly and strong. Provide an easy-to-navigate online structure and setup for the course. This encourages students to leverage LMS features that save time, while reducing errors.

7. Protect the academic honesty and integrity of the course. Create valid and reliable assessment procedures, like MyOMLab, that mitigate cheating. This ensures the course is fair.

8. Build a learning scaffold of activities that require the use of course content. Develop a set of tasks in which assignments build on each other.

9. Facilitate an engaging collaborative learning community. Create activities in which students engage with each other. This encourages peer-to-peer support, reduces confusion, and increases student commitment for the course.

10. Frame the learning outcomes in ways that are meaningful. Explain how the outcomes connect to all elements of the course, as well as to students’ professional aims.

Teaching Tip: Teaching Covid and OM

We think that when you review your lecture outlines on supply chains and OM this semester and in Spring, you may find the need for some reworking. As a matter of fact, “the disruption of the pandemic in 2020, coming on top of the uncertainties surrounding trade wars, has helped turn OM/SCM into a theme of growing concern for businesses, business schools and wider society,” reports Financial Times (Oct. 8, 2020).

Shortage of bikes at Walmart during the pandemic

Cross-border trade comprised just 5% of GDP in the mid-20th century but today it is closer to 50%. That has been accompanied by a rapid extension of global supply chains with products and their components often manufactured in numerous countries, driven by cheap labor and easier transport and communication.

London Business School Prof. Jeremie Gallien states: “supply chain management used to be perceived as a ‘somewhat niche component’ of the business education curriculum. In the aftermath of the first Covid wave, many firms found themselves either fighting for survival or realizing the importance of increasing their resilience to reduce the costs they will incur during the next disruption It is harder to get student interest if one teaches supply chain concepts without being able to relate to Covid-19.”

Jay, Chuck, and I agree. And as authors of the top selling OM text in U.S. and global markets, we are here to help make your lectures more timely and relevant. We hope you will incorporate Table 11.3 (“Supply Chain Risks and Tactics”) in Ch. 11 (p. 450) and the section called “Evaluating Disaster Risk in the Supply Chain” in Supp. 11 (p.472-3) into your syllabus.

And to bring more currency into case discussions, we have just written a new case called Premier Bicycle’s COVID Problem. This case will appear in MyOMLab’s Spring edition, but here is the link should you want to preview the case or teach it this term.

Teaching Tip: Giving Your OM Students an Individualized Experience in Online Learning

As universities across the country begin to make the difficult decision to continue with online learning in the fall semester, faculty will again be asked to adapt their classes to an online format, writes Faculty Focus (July 27, 2020). Here are some ideas for individualized instruction that you may want to introduce into your online OM course to increase student engagement.

Making Content Manageable. In an individualized instruction model, students have the freedom to work through course material at their own pace while being provided a safety net of support from course staff to shepherd them through the course. For example, divide the content into 10 units which are each assessed about one week apart. Breaking the material down into these manageable chunks is important in keeping students from becoming overwhelmed with the content. For each unit, provide students with a list of concepts and objectives you expect them to master by the end of their study on the unit. They can take advantage of text readings, online supplemental materials, your mini-lecture videos, and tutoring sessions.
Flexibility. One of the most important aspects of any individualized instruction model is scheduling. Students should adhere to a “deadline schedule” to ensure they continue progressing through the course, and have a “deadline” by which they need to complete each unit. You can, of course, provide flexibility on deadlines.
Interacting with Course Staff. Students seem to prefer scheduling individual (or small group) meetings with course staff over virtual office hours or weekly review sessions. While course content can be disseminated via recordings of your lectures, viewing of these lectures leave students with “Zoom fatigue.” Small group interactions succeed in keeping students engaged and learning.
A Point Person for Every Student. Assigning every student to a course staff member as their point-of-contact means students develop relationships with someone who provides regular contact via 1-on-1 tutoring and guidance through the assessment process.
Building Community. From day one have students assign themselves to small group discussion sessions that meet during the first 4 weeks of the class. In these sessions, students get to know each other, get to know course staff, and begin to familiarize themselves with the resources available to them for the course.

Guest Post: Research on Student Perceptions of Online vs. Face-to-Face

Dr. Lynn A. Fish, who is Professor of Management at Canisius College, provides today’s Guest Post

Since 2012, Dr. Coral Snodgrass and I have been researching student perceptions of online versus face-to-face (FTF) education at Canisius College. Our most recent research focused on whether changes in business student perceptions had occurred. Our survey includes questions on individual factors (motivation, discipline, self-directed, independence, schedule flexibility, time investment, cost investment, happiness and appropriateness of online education), and program factors (difficulty, student-to-student interaction, student-to-instructor interaction, cheating and program preference). If administrators, who perceive FTF and online education as equivalent, are correct, then students should be indifferent to all education factors.

Our 2012 research indicated that business students preferred FTF over online education on most factors. And as of 2018, business students still generally preferred FTF. (See our article in The BRC Academy Journal of Education, 8, no. 1, 2020). However, changes occurred for the online student population from the original study with respect to their views on self-directed, time investment, and appropriateness of online. With respect to the FTF student population, changes in perspectives from the original study occurred for self-directed, preference and student-to-instructor interaction.

As noted in our prior studies, the context of the study (private versus public, large versus small, and program of study) may be a critical factor to consider in understanding student activity preferences. This study occurred at an institution usually taught through FTF courses to small classes (average 18-20 students). Online education at the institution occurs through decisions entirely made by the individual instructor, as no instructional designers are available.

Other institutions may deliver online and FTF education through other methods, such as using instructional designers or digitally-enhanced courses, and therefore students may perceive online and FTF education differently than here. Other studies demonstrate that research into student perceptions are ‘mixed’ as the results vary on each factor studied. There is no clear answer as to what students’ perceive and appears to vary between institutions.

Teaching Tip: Reaching Your On-Line Students

Teaching online well is harder than teaching face to face. For some of you, it has meant learning new systems. For others, it has meant redesigning how we will engage the OM material. We are all challenged to find new ways of connecting with and keeping students engaged.

Students are struggling with the same mechanics we are; managing their workload in a new environment. Some of our students are feeling adrift. They have been struggling with the perception that their classes are now just independent studies, that some teachers have ceased teaching, and that we don’t care about them. This perception challenge is real. Here are a few suggestions borrowed from colleagues around the country:

Ask Your Students What is Working We are using different formats for connecting with and engaging our students: MyOMLab, discussion forums, group activities, zoom, videos, email discussions, etc. Some of these work well for some classes and not so well with others. Ask your students how the different formats are working.

Engaging Students and Providing Brief but Frequent Communication Some profs have their students interact with class members or the whole class and make a point to communicate with them daily. If students fail to participate, you can reach out to them to find out what is going on. Ask how they are doing and if they need some help navigating the material. If they know that their participation is being noticed and matters, they will make more effort.

Creatively Connect with Students Have you tried offering zoom office hours or designating some time in zoom classes for social interaction. Or you can use lower tech versions following up with students via email and phone conversations. Students are losing out on all the positive social interaction they usually have with us in and out of class. Contact during social isolation is good for them and us too.

Guest Post: What This Danish Prof Learned Teaching OM Online

Dr. Steven Harrod is Associate Professor in the DTU Diplom Department at the Technical University of Denmark.

On March 12, 2020, all education at the Technical University of Denmark made an emergency conversion to online services. I was fairly lucky. I had a home office, and a high quality webcam. Many of my colleagues did not. One colleague used his white refrigerator as a whiteboard!

Ergonomics are a real problem, and it is really hard to keep eye contact when sitting close to multiple monitors with a webcam placed above. I would strongly recommend using a tripod-mounted camera, a gyroscopic mouse, and giving lectures from a standing position. Absolute luxury would be a green screen effect, weatherman style, where I would walk in front of the slides.

Online lectures are tiring, both for you and your students. It is hard to focus on a laptop screen for long periods, especially when the screen is cluttered with faces, chat window, and a shared presentation. It is absolutely critical that you plan a 15 minute coffee break within every hour.

Strongly consider replacing some of your live lectures with pre-recorded content. I estimate 30 minutes of scripted lesson is equal to an hour or more of live lecture. Use a quality video editing software (I recommend Camtasia). Budget about 1 hour of editing for every 10 minutes of produced video. YouTube is a great distribution channel.

You may feel that your students are not participating in the online lectures. Don’t panic! Encourage the use of chat for student questions and feedback, which many students will find more accessible.

Is this the future of education? I don’t think so. Who wants to pay tuition to watch 6 hours of Discovery Channel every day? However, when used as part of a planned and balanced mix of teaching methods, online education offers flexibility and a solution to unavoidable constraints. Next time I have to be away at a conference, I will just plug my laptop into the hotel flat screen, pull out my air mouse, and class will be in session!

Teaching Tip: Simple Strategies to Reduce Cheating on Online Exams

The end of the academic term, of course, brings final exams and cumulative assessments to test students’ knowledge of OM course materials. With so many college students taking online courses (and that number expeditiously increasing) so will the need for administering exams within the online learning environment, writes Faculty Focus (May 11, 2020). Even without expensive virtual proctoring tools, there are many ways that instructors can leverage the inherent features within their institution’s Learning Management System (LMS) and within MyOMLab to decrease cheating during online examinations. Here are 6 ways to do so:

Use varied question types. Refrain from having an exam with all multiple choice or true and false questions. Our MyOMLab’s algorithmic problems are a perfect complement to these questions.
Creatively remind students of academic integrity policies. Create and post a video explaining the guidelines for the online exam and review the institution’s academic integrity policy and consequences that are listed in the course syllabus.
Require students to sign an academic integrity contract. After reviewing the academic integrity reminder video, have students electronically sign a contract that lists what the university considers cheating.
Restrict testing window. Similar to how on-campus final exams have a designated testing slot for each course, create the same online. Have every student start the exam around the same time and limit how long each student will have to take the exam. If you have students in different time zones, consider offering three sets of tests, at 3 different start times.
Change test question sequence. In the test settings, have the order of test questions be different for each exam along with the order of answer choices for each test question.
Delay score availability. Set a later date after the testing window ends for students to see their score and feedback and do not make the score available for immediate view after test completion. This way, one student who finishes early cannot see their score and then advise students who have not completed the test yet.

These are just a few ideas. Care to share your own tips with a comment below?

Teaching Tip: Going On-Line with Your OM Course this Week

Jay, Chuck, and I put our 100+ years of teaching experience together to try to help as we all begin this transition to a coronavirus semester. If you are not using MyOMLab yet, we strongly encourage you to sign your students up (90 day free period if you are using our Heizer/Render/Munson texts). More ideas will follow this week.

Teaching online is not the same as teaching face to face. Be proactive with communication, schedules, and assignments.
Accept that your course will not be exactly as you planned….. and adjust.
Details we assume in the classroom become important with remote students: Maintain context; identify the question, the problem, the post, include the date and time.
Consider how your course material might best be captured: assigned readings, written out mini lectures, screen captures, short videos, etc.
Videos: If you make and post a video, shoot for 6 minutes or less. Or instead consider using the videos that come with our text (46 company video case studies, 90+ Solved Problem videos, 12 recent grad videos about OM careers). It’s also possible to have students post their own videos, either recorded through Panopto or even their own phones. This allows for mini-presentations that other students could comment on.
Don’t reinvent the wheel: Use existing resources that come with the text; Power points, videos, existing problems, etc.
Participation: There are multiple ways of encouraging participation online: skype; face time; group work through discussion forums; Zoom video conference.
Make a schedule … your schedule and the student’s schedule. Be specific about deadlines. be clear about content and time expectations for their posts to each other in discussion forums. Let students know how they can raise questions and when you will be responding. Any online synchronous activities should be scheduled at the same time that the live class had been meeting prior to moving to distance.
Hybrid approach You might try recorded lectures for more quantitative content but still have the class meet through Zoom, say, once per week for more discussion-based topics. Zoom’s screen share feature works quite well during a live class. Students primarily focus on the instructor’s computer screen with a small video of the instructor in the corner. And it’s easy to switch from a Power Point slide to Excel to showing a video, etc.
Communications: Remember, the students may be new to this too, so continuing communication is important. Check your email more often than usual. Students may be asking questions at any time of day.