Using examples to reduce sedentary time during online teaching

Teaching in a classroom involves a certain amount of movement almost by default. I tend to prowl around the front of the room or wander among the students when I ask them to discuss in groups. Most of the time is spent on my feet. Breaktime brings a reversal in roles whereby I sit down to rest and the students get up to get some air, stretch or go get a coffee.

Teaching online simply does not facilitate such natural movement. I sit in front of my laptop camera for the whole session. When there’s a break, I might get up to make myself a coffee, but it is also tempting to remain seated and reply to emails. Apart from the few brave souls willing to keep their cameras on during the online sessions, I have no real way of knowing to what extent they are keeping active.

You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink, is how the saying goes. But you can keep reminding the horse of the importance of hydration and oh, how refreshing this water is! And you can show other horses engaged in water drinking.

Nudging towards healthier habits

Showing examples can be an effective method to guide people towards healthier lifestyles. An article from Frontiers in Psychology (Venema et. al., 2020) detailed that when presented with a choice and no clear preference, people tend to do what others are doing. In the vocabulary of choice architecture, this is called social proof. This is particularly useful in budging people towards making choices that foster healthier lifestyles.

For this to work when faced with a wall of dark rectangles of a Zoom lesson, it must be phrased as a choice between activities. We should ask our students, not IF but HOW they will be active during the lessons. And of course, praise the answers.

This way, students are exposed to the idea that a) remaining active is important, b) their coursemates are active during the lessons, and c) they are furnished with examples of how to be active.

Further information

The Students on the Move program at Tampere Universities aims to make study and workdays more active. Here are some tips on how to reduce sedentary time in online classes:

• Design activities for the students that require stepping away from the computer (and use the free time to do break exercise movements yourself)
• Inform the students in advance if the lesson or a part of it can be listened to while taking a walk (you can hold the lesson standing yourself)
• And of course, some of the tips from 9 ways to reduce sitting also apply to online teaching
  • Give the students permission to stand up and move
  • Get the students up in every 30 minutes
  • Show them an exercise video during the break

Read more about how to increase movement in your teaching:

• TLC – Movement as a part of teaching
• SportUni – Students on the move
• OLL – Higher education on the move

Christopher Smith, Teacher, Business and Media, Tampere University of Applied Sciences

References

Venema, T. A., Kroese, F. M., Benjamins, J. S., & De Ridder, D. T. D. (2020). When in doubt, follow the crowd? Responsiveness to social proof nudges in the absence of clear preferences. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 499433. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01385