There are many options that students keep in mind before going for a certain course, or institution. To some, position and travel convenience are important, while to others educational brilliance or status. Budding enduring friendships and proficient connections with co-workers and professors are not only exhilarating but in a lot of cases, also essential, both for networking objectives and the mental comfort of students. No student ever aspires to go to college to experience isolation, but unfortunately, it is exactly what many students across the globe have been experiencing since the advent of the Covid-19 pandemic. While they are obligatory to stay put following social and new rules and formats, there are ways to generate a community and a sagacity of belonging by making online learning more efficient. Here’s how:
A. Targeting Group Assignments
Even before the virulent disease enforced schools, colleges, and universities to accept amalgam or completely online system of education, group-based projects have always been a struggle. Now when students operate in dissimilar time zones and environments, obligatory group work is more demanding than ever.
How:
- Put together students on the basis of their geographic area to make sure the time zone stays consistent.
- Spend the preliminary class presentation students how to work together online with various LMS tools.
- Students should keep screenshots of development, to keep a track of growth and defend against misplaced or deleted work.
B. Build up syllabi that facilitate peer dialogue
There is undeniable learning as well as teaching curve in the online classrooms. Online teaching is extremely difficult for teachers on behalf of larger conventional institutions where enormous lecture halls are an indisputable part of the daily student experience. But now is the time to change this speaker system and generate more of a modern Q&A style arrangement. This can be done by in fact having fewer or shorter lectures to give confidence to discussions and communication.
How:
Split your syllabus into different columns with small quizzes, or a conversation board at the end of each segment. This will make students stay present and focused. When the students are aware that a quiz holding marks weightage will come after each section, they are less probable to flow away or look through the internet during lectures. By adding together a conversation board in the syllabus, students can connect with each other while the teacher takes notes. If some students are not taking part in class, the teacher can send a report through e-mail reminding them about the conversation board.
Put up concurrent surveys.
While the Covid-19 pandemic has its fair share of challenges, modern technology has made our lives considerably easier. With teaching apps like Teachmint, you can now engage actively with your students and get their responses in real-time. This approach is not only tremendously educational, but it can also put in an amusing and interactive factor to get your questions answered by the students.
How:
- Keep your questions, polls, or quizzes little and applicable to the lesson plan
- Create questions that unswervingly relate to the online classroom discussion and give students a possibility to examine the polling results.
- Motivate welcoming discussions by asking students why they opted for a meticulous answer. You can also keep assessment responses unidentified and generate homework assignments based on the results.
Simplify the class aura with personal discussions.
In the proficient and educational world alike, small talk is indispensable. You want to know more about your co-working peers personally, and treat them humanly, not just a robotic communication. “Water cooler talk” is frequently used to depict informal conversation that is non-work associated, and it may help build up bonds between students and teachers.
How:
At the end of each week, strike a chord for your students to be present and share their weekend stories on a Monday.
Be kind to yourself.
Even though the focal point has been on creating an improved online setting for our students, it is only normal for teachers to be worried out due to the “new normal” world. The phrase “we are all in this together” has been used since March 2020 to ring a bell for all of us that the pandemic has affected everyone differently, but jointly, we can get through it. When the time comes to revisit a physical classroom full-time, we will come together with our students stronger than ever before. Till then, happy online teaching!
