Student Engagement and Online Classrooms

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."-Benjamin Franklin

It is important to involve students in the classroom to ensure that learning is effective. Student engagement is a major concern for teachers across the globe. What is student engagement? Student engagement is when students are excited to learn, are interested to take part in the classroom activities, and show a positive attitude towards learning new things. It is not easy to ensure student engagement. Especially when it comes to online classrooms, student engagement is a major concern. Here are eight tips that would help you to increase student engagement in online classrooms.

Student engagement and student achievement are closely connected. Without further ado, let's delve deeper into the topic:

1.Active Learning

Active learning, as the name suggests, refers to creating an active learning environment by inviting students to participate in the classroom. In online classrooms, quite often, teachers forget to create an active learning space. After 15-20 mins of teaching, ask your students if they have any doubts or ask them how many points they can talk about from what they have been taught and likewise. This way, students get to clear their queries and you get to interact with them.

2. Gamification

Gamifying your lessons will help in increasing student participation in online classrooms. Students love innovation and novelty. You can incorporate activities and games that are closely related to the concepts that you are teaching and then center the teaching around these games. With the advancement in technology and the numerous educational apps available, it is easy for teachers to create games for learning.

3. Story Telling

Who doesn't like stories? Online classrooms are a great platform to teach through stories. Teachers have the ability to convert boring topics into interesting stories. Be it algebra or anatomy or organic chemistry, rather than just putting the concepts out there, try and build a story around it. Ask your students for input and suggestions and what they think would happen next. This way, the classes remain interactive and interesting.

4. Learning Experience

Teachers need to create a learning experience for students. The most important thing that you need to understand is that, as teachers, you need to go above and beyond the textbook knowledge. You have to create an online classroom experience that is hard not to be interested in.

You can do this by incorporating activities and by using different teaching methods in the classroom. It is said that people don't buy products, they buy experience. It is similar for classrooms as well, students respond to a great learning experience rather than routine Q & A patterns. Record your live classes and see if you would doze off during your classes and how often you are interacting with your students. You can always alter your teaching strategies accordingly.

5. Inquiry-Based Learning

Students are naturally inquisitive. You just need to nurture that inquisitiveness and curiosity in them. Teachers need to push students to seek answers rather than spoon-feed them with all the knowledge. You can give a solution in prior and ask students to come up with questions for it. When they search for questions, there's a chance that they would explore more areas that you yourself wouldn't have thought about. Inquiry-based learning helps students to investigate concepts more and this is a great way to foster independence and self-learning.

Online classrooms are significantly different from traditional classrooms. However, that shouldn't stop teachers from trying to increase student engagement. Choosing the right online teaching app is the first step to ensure that your online classes function smoothly. When you choose the right online classroom, you can focus on the important aspects of teaching and invest time in new methods and strategies.