The education system collapsed worldwide during the spread of Covid-19 as everyone was forced to their homes for safety and lockdown procedures were implemented. That’s when online learning became the widely accepted medium for teaching out-of-school kids.
Online Learning or distance learning is a process that takes place over the internet instead of traditional classrooms.
Although distance learning is playing a vital role in the education sector to keep things up and running, teachers are still facing problems with teaching students effectively and offer them the comfort and the learning experience that, if not better, is equivalent to a traditional classroom.
Here, we will discuss a few ways to teach students effectively during the pandemic and keep them motivated.
Use Easily Accessible Online Tools to Conduct Classes
If your school is closed, one effective way to conduct classes online is to bring technological platforms into the play.
Most of the schools that closed down due to pandemic moved to platforms such as Office 365 offered by Microsoft, or the Google Classroom.
These are not just easy to use but also are available for free for educational institutes. Moreover, the only thing you and your students would need is a reliable internet connection such as Hughes net internet.
So, once everything is set-up, guide your students about the registration process on those platforms and help them to initially understand how that works.
Once everyone is on board, you can create your schedule and start classes on the regular basis. Moreover, keep everyone in the loop and assist them in case they face any problems.
Other than Office 365 and Google Classroom, you can also use platforms like Zoom or Skype based on your students’ convenience.
Engagement Activities
Engagement activities are an important part of kids learning and to keep them active.
If you have moved to distance learning, that doesn’t mean that there should not be any engagement activities.
There are different platforms out there that offer several engagement activities specifically designed for students. For instance, Sumdog is an online learning platform for children that offers different activities from fun literacy games to math problems for kids.
You can use these platforms to provide home-work tasks and keep everyone active. Along with that, you can offer them rewards based on their performance.
Team Work
Along with several other aspects, teamwork is the one very important thing that effectively supports remote learning and gives students something to look forward to.
As a teacher, you can start different teamwork activities that boost your learner’s confidence and keep them active. To make sure all online activity, you must have the best laptop for teachers to connect with students.
For instance, you can divide different parts of the topic among students and ask them to teach. Moreover, you can ask everyone to form groups and assign them different projects to work on together.
That will not just keep everyone communicating with each other, but will also improve the performance of the students.
Discussion Forums
Another great way to keep the communication between students and teachers alive is the creation of discussion forums. You can do that by using your school’s current learning platform.
If that is not possible, you can even go for WhatsApp or Facebook groups where students can interact with each other and teachers to get answers to their questions.
Moreover, you can assign different tasks where your learners can lead the discussion and experiment with different things to see the response.
Not everything will start working from the beginning. So, be patient and use your experience as a teacher to make a difference.
Feedback
Feedback is considered one of the most effective tools for improvement among students. So, don’t forget to motivate your learners and provide them feedback from time to time.
As we discussed above, you can start engagement activities and give everyone the chance to participate. So, at the end of those activities, you can appreciate everyone and let them know how well they performed.
In case someone needs improvement, don’t opt for harsh words or criticism. Look for other ways to adopt feedback and constructive criticism in the online learning setting.
Moreover, support the ones that are facing problems. For instance, if any of your students are nervous about participating in activities, offer them alternatives. If anyone is concerned about not being able to speak in front of everyone during the class activities, give them the option to submit a recorded video.
That way, everyone will participate actively and would know that they can rely on you if things go sideways. Moreover, they will be more open to discussing their problems.
Concluding Thoughts
The key to teaching students effectively in an online setting is engagement. Moreover, being understanding and effectively adopting the new ways would go hand in hand if you want to get results.
Always keep in mind that it’s your class and you know how to assist everyone. Use your experience as a teacher and utilize all the means necessary to help your students. On top of that, accept the fact that not everything will be effective and sometimes you will have to change your ways or tweak things a little to get the required results.
