Five Ways to Keep Your Students Hooked Online
Picture this, you’re on Zoom explaining your lesson for the day and you can see your students zoning out, becoming more and more uninterested.
I mean you can’t blame them. The coronavirus has been difficult on all of us, especially students who are used to over-stimulation and need to let out all their energy but are now stuck at home.
However, there are a number of ways you can keep your students interested online, to try and teach them better, but to also try to help them through this difficult phase.
Here are 5 ways you can keep your students interested in learning online:
1. Share videos rather than text
We are tempted to just drop the casual PDF or word document and expect people to read it. But kids nowadays are mainly visual learners so sharing YouTube visuals, infographics, and other forms of visual aid to explain an idea or a concept would definitely make it easier for your students to learn.
2. Change up the homework!
If you always tended to have written assignments, think of ways your students can deliver their homework differently. Think outside the box - how else can I know they have truly learned the lesson at hand? What homework can I give that will allow my students to get creative? Can it be turned into video homework? Listening assignment? Try to engage your student’s creativity so they feel more engaged.
3. Have short group activities online
If you are using a video conferencing tool to hold your classroom, you can ask your students to turn the camera on and dedicate time to each lesson to engage their social skills. This can be very simple, such as mini competitions and games about the lesson or even about their daily lives. Or Yes/No cards that students make and they answer using them at the same time. You can even use Kahoot! To administer the game.
This can turn into a fun little activity for your students that allows them to connect with their classmates and engage with the lesson critically.
4. Assign timely and relevant homework
This might be a bad time to ask your students to read about a classical text. Don’t get me wrong, the classics are important and eternal - but it might not be the best time for them now. Try to find relevant content about what they are going through or content that will bring them joy and lightness instead of stress. We’ve published an array of texts during the coronavirus outbreak that you can assign to your students, from texts about stress to informational texts about viruses and how to stay safe.
5. Communicate!
We are all new to this and are just trying our best to cope with everything around us. While trying something new in the lesson plan or in the way we are teaching the lesson, end the class by asking your students for feedback. Ask them if there are things they want to do more of, or less of, or things they want to add to the virtual classroom that will help them. This will give them a platform to voice their concerns and a sense of ownership over their education.
