At present times online virtual classroom experience is a familiar thing. But for small children, the online class might be a new learning experience. But there is a big chance of getting distracted when they’re supposed to be paying attention. We can prevent these issues by implementing some new strategies to engage the students during online classes.
Compared to offline classes, engaging students during online classes is the biggest challenge and we need to think about ideas to improve student’s creativity and stimulate their brains. Home environments are surrounded by potential distractions, so we need to think about how to keep students engaged, motivated, and interested in their lessons.
By learning this article you will get to know about plenty of tips and tricks to increase engagement in the classroom
Let's dive deep into it.
The best tips which helps you learn how to make online classes fun and engaging:
1. Present your best
Visuals
- Make sure that you and your location look presentable during the ongoing live classroom. Because a decent background works best to eliminate the distractions.
- If you show your face, kids will feel more engaged and interested to attend the class. If you are ready to take classes by showing your face, kids will get more motivated.
- If you are sharing any presentation, pay more attention to it. Make it clean and clear. Include quality videos in it.
Audio
- Always use the attractive tone of your voice and try to introduce new activities or mix up the tempo of your class.
- Practice the storytelling skills. This will encourage students to focus more on their studies and provide keen attention.
- Try to include good-quality audio clips.
- Make sure you must have a reliable internet connection before starting the class. Children will easily get distracted if they face any connection problem while taking the class.
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2. Use technology to your advantage
Online teaching comes up with so many challenges. But innovative tools in technology help us to make learning easier. Trainers can use whiteboards, virtual games, pointers, text editors, file editors, drawing tools, breakout rooms, or screen-sharing tools. With the help of technology, we can add variety to our lessons and grab the student's attention.
Adaptability to the new world is a necessary thing in all industries. So teachers must have the knowledge to use the virtual tools and teach these skills to their students too. So in the future, the students might feel confident by using them. Think about the possibilities of using them to liven up the lessons. Use fun rewards to entice students. Kids can’t pay attention to anything for more than 30 seconds.
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3. Find what inspires your students
The main way to make a well interactive class is to make real connections with the students. The main key to getting the online students involved is to find out what inspires them and gives them a reason to get engaged in the classroom like the real face-to-face classroom. Try different methods in the class that make students get involved in it. We just need to find what works for them.
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4. Set goals and help students follow them
Teachers can help students to stay on track with their studies and let them know the purpose of learning before entering into each topic. This will enable them to set goals and remind them of their progress.
How can we set goals for students through online learning?
We can introduce short-term goals into the online classroom by making sure each lesson that we share with the students has a clear outline. So they may have a knowledge of where they are in the learning process and the context for any activity they are doing.
Also, teachers can introduce rewards for students who are finishing tasks. We can find the most talented/hard-working one during a lesson. This will lead them to generate more interest in studies. Appreciation might be in the form of positive feedback, badges, points, playing games, or doing their favorite fun learning activities
Long time goals
Students can dream about their future and take baby steps to it. But over-expectation and worries about the future, which is too far also not good. Students can take time and discuss with their friends and family to set goals for achievements within a year.
Progress checks
Through quick revisions or quizzes on previous topics, teachers can do short-term progress checks and make sure the continuity between lessons. We can remind students about their long-term progress by building up a workflow with them. So that they can look back at themselves and see how far they've crossed. For that start an achievement page. So that teachers can guide students to follow this achievement page and record their learnings in it. They can creatively construct an achievement tree. While going across the page that is filled with progress, reminders of success, and proud moments, students will feel more proud and productive.
5. Make it interactive
Compared to face-to-face classes, all activities to get kids engaged may not work properly through virtual classes. We can’t ensure a calm atmosphere as an offline class. But we can make them engaged through interaction and give them some tasks which need them to be actively involved by clicking, typing, or talking throughout the lesson. You can ask them a lot of questions, conduct some games and make sure students are physically able to do things like use drawing tools or type in the dialogue boxes. While moving to the next topic teachers can tell students to summarize things by randomly calling their names or asking some questions during their class unexpectedly. This will alert them to give their mind to fit in their classroom.
6. Divide the lesson and make it digestible
Don’t make the class so boring by conducting long hours of teaching. Kids can’t concentrate in class after a certain point in time. Unlike the face-to-face classes, they break down the time period and allot the classes to prepare the lessons as chunks of easily digestible form. Lengthy explanations and slides with too much text won’t work up to the level.
Mixing up the tempo of teacher’s lessons by adding a variety of activity types is also a great way to get children involved in class actively. Teachers can use lesson planners like Planboard to write the lesson plans for the online classroom.
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7. Feel valued
The main disadvantage of online classrooms is the isolated experience. This will make kids demotivated. It will create a situation where they won’t feel valued, they might think their presence/absence won’t make much difference. They may think that no one will notice or care if they miss a class, or find it all too tempting to not log in to the classroom if they are not interested. So that teachers should ensure that each student should feel like they are valued in the classroom.
Tips for providing individual attention
- Remember each student's name and use their name throughout the class, and make sure they are listening.
- Follow up on what they learned in previous classes. Easily available for their doubts and clarifications. So, students may feel that they are getting attention from their teacher.
- Find out a student's passion and think about how we can make use of that skill in their studies.
- Give regular feedback to students based on their work
- Be ready to be positive, encouraging, and present throughout the class.
8. Be patient with your students
Young kids might not have very high attention spans, so it’s hard for them to sit still and focus for long hours. It’s quite a normal thing. Give them some time and some breaks. It’s so essential to behave patiently with them. Try to understand your students and instead of getting frustrated, always think about the possibilities to make the class interesting for them.
How can we make our virtual classroom more engaged?
- Try to Teach more creativity.
Online classrooms may feel more challenging at first, but with a little effort and time, we can make them more attractive and effective than offline classes. If teachers are ready to give their best, students will get the best experience possible. And, they'll be so excited to attend their classes.
Pledge to build better online classrooms by don't getting discouraged. Acquire more confidence to ensure a smooth transition into the world of online teaching. Join Cyber Square to experience the best online teaching. Book a Free Class Now!
