Teaching is an amazing yet challenging task when you have your students present in a classroom physically. However, it is an entirely different thing when it is done remotely. Virtual or online learning has been around since the invention of the internet. This type of learning has been used by universities, colleges, companies, and organizations.
Remote teaching has improved tremendously due to the closure of schools as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the teachers are still unable to track what the students are doing behind the screens. As a result, more and more students get lazy in their studies and opt to write “take my online class” to a writing professional instead of dealing with these classes and exams on their own. But don’t worry – everything’s not that bad. There are strategies teachers can use to not only hold classes but also engage their students in distance learning. Let’s take a look at them!
Create Meaningful Lessons
To engage students in distant learning, you need to create highly engaging and meaningful lessons. One of the major issues of remote teaching is the creation of lessons that will spark the interest of students. To overcome the normal boredom of physical classroom learning, you should engage your students with real-world connections during your online classes.
You should engage students with topics that they can personally relate to and lessons that pose real-life issues. Your students will be more motivated and involved as they explore these problems and find solutions to them. Empower them with challenges to investigate real-life problems. Get them engaged and active with role-playing. This will inspire your students and make the class more interactive, fun, and engaging.
Do Not Try to Do Everything
While remote learning has been around for a very long time, it is still new to many teachers. One of the best ways to keep your online class engaging is trying not to do everything at once, as this may burn you out quickly. We recommend you start slow. Introduce a new assignment or tool and see how your students respond to it.
If the new tool or assignment works, nice! Continue with it and build on your success. If there are a lot of technical glitches or the new tool does not interest the students, move on to the next one. As a remote teacher, your major focus should be on maintaining knowledge, rather than teaching.
Set Your Expectations
Setting your expectations and things you need to achieve at the beginning of the class is another great thing to do. If your students are not used to online learning yet, they will need some time to adapt. Many students are new to this space and it is important that you state your expectations for your students clearly.
You should clarify the kind of activities you want them to engage in, how much work you expect from them and the timeframe to complete it, behavioral guidelines, and more. You will be able to achieve your goals a lot easier if your students know what is expected of them from the onset.
Seek Feedback
If you want to have highly engaging remote teaching sessions, then interactivity should be one of your focuses. Online learning is an abrupt learning curve for many students, and it will be almost impossible to achieve success without the arduous power of feedback. You should solicit feedback from your students frequently. If you are teaching younger children, you can ask their parents for feedback regarding the performance of their children.
With adequate feedback from your students or their parents, you will be able to readjust your strategy and figure out what you are missing. You will also be able to know the approaches that are working well and the ones you need to work on.
Use Different Tools and Materials
In the classroom, teachers use a wide range of materials and tools to pass a message across. These materials increase the interest of the students and make the class more engaging. To engage your students in distance learning, you need to fully harness all the resources and tools you have at hand.
Many inexperienced remote teachers have only one or two tools that they rely on most of the time, and that is wrong. Most remote teachings are done through videos – either recorded or live sessions, and these are great platforms to showcase many tools and materials. You can show all the graphs, pictures, diagrams, and even videos that you want.
Featured Image: Thought Catalog, Unsplash.
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