In times of pandemic, distance learning has gained strength. What can teachers do to make distance classes more attractive to students?
In my opinion, distance courses, to be more attractive, must offer more flexibility and suppleness to the learner. For this purpose, the courses can be offered in synchronous or asynchronous mode. In a synchronous course, the student, regardless of where he is, can connect to the course platform at the same time as the teacher. This is the formula that most closely resembles classroom instruction. However, the student has the option of watching the session later, which allows more flexibility than in class. The asynchronous course, on the other hand, allows the student to do the course at his convenience during the week. Educational activities can take different forms, such as forums, quizzes, etc. This formula gives the student even more flexibility, but also requires more organization and discipline than if he took classes in class.
In addition, other advice is also recommended in this regard, including:
- Use labels to orient the students well, explain the educational objectives of each sequence and each activity, then clearly describe the instructions for the activities.
- Use activities to stimulate the learner's thinking, encourage interaction, sharing and collective production.
- Play on pleasure, develop fun and interactive activities.
- Illustrate the title of a course with an image inserted in the section, this can make it more attractive.
- Encourage exchanges between participants, especially between students, so that they actively participate in the course.
-To make it easier to read a document or an activity: choose a font, sans serif typography, choose a font size, a large font, use color for course keywords, bold of the font to highlight the words, the key ideas.
- Propose a discussion forum allowing students to ask questions, to address organizational elements, to exchange around concepts mentioned in class ... The forum must be moderated and you intervene to provide answers, additional information ... when the discussions are closed or to revive the debates.
- etc.
There can be many strategies to improve the quality of online classes and increase student engagement
Most important is the preparation of the teacher and his/her ability to engage students. If a teacher was boring in a face to face class, technology will not help him/her deliver a good online class. Many Online free courses are available on https://www.coursera.org/ and https://www.edx.org/ on How to develop and online course and improve online teaching
Ask for help and advice from other colleagues involved in online teaching and learn from their experience.
Try to use different polls and live feedback during the session to improve student engagement. In the case of Zoom pro there is the option of Polls and Whiteboard which are great tools to engage students.
In addition, the use of tools like https://www.polleverywhere.com/ and https://padlet.com/dashboard can also improve students engagement
Its important to keep real time communication, there should something to keep discussions going, hypermedia is also very important.
I have just done some zoom-classes during lockdown and have found the following strategies seemed to be a positive method for engagement of all students:
- start off session with some relational activities for ice-breakers at beginning of each session.
- before recap ask students how they are doing with life and also with assignments, reading etc
-use a mass of online journal spaces for students to add to during group work sessions within (if using zoom), break-out groups but keep this to a time limit - always join into their group sessions and discuss one aspect of what they are doing.
-always ask for feedback during and at end of session
- do planning before and after - reflections via journal systems for class/group
- always ask if content knowledge shared is clear and do group works (smaller groups than before) - do this as a collaboritive summary at end of session
-outline what they need to do for next session/class
- Discussions within a range of forums to support debate and critical thinking and analysis of content knowledge
-flip classroom and allow students to share - via google doc etc their understanding of some content and that they are invited to take a 15 minute session to share with class their learning, questions
Just a few of some strategies that I have found worked well.
Best for continuous learning.
Hi!
Studying in a flexible manner and with less coercion will always need personal motivation on the student side. Students are bored and inactive also in col-located (classroom for synchronous functions) courses, but we often think that it is a sign of engagement if they just attend. It may not be.
I do not think we should concentrate only on the "entertaining teaching" / cool tools issue to nurture motivation - but more on good routines (and possibly learning analytics) in the online/blended class to follow the teaching, interact with teacher and peers and make it evident for a student if he/she follows the course or not. See my co-authored article attached on how to try to use agile framework strategies for this.
A teacher strategy that saves times from preparing lectures and puts this time into communication and feedback to students is also highly motivating.
Article Time Shifting and Agile Time Boxes in Course Design
Thank Anders Norberg for your comments. I will read your paper to help me unpack this topic more.
Very appreciative Meripa
Various interactive strategies work for student engagement. Some of them can be:
- Project based learning
- Problem based learning strategies
- Case studies
- Student centered learning
- Discussion
- Reflective journals
- Research based methods
Lo más importante es no deshumanizar la interacción más allá de la mediatización
https://retosdelaciencia.com/Revistas/index.php/retos/article/view/304/154
I thank everyone for their contributions. Thank you very much. Distance learning is a challenge that, more than ever, knocks on our door. Therefore, we need to be prepared for this demand, which, in my view, will be constant from now on.
engaging students and making teaching interactive by asking for their views
Teachers need to be well prepared and or trained to adopt a learner centred approach. Use project based learning to bring on board all learners
In my opinion, distance courses, to be more attractive, must offer more flexibility and suppleness to the learner. For this purpose, the courses can be offered in synchronous or asynchronous mode. In a synchronous course, the student, regardless of where he is, can connect to the course platform at the same time as the teacher. This is the formula that most closely resembles classroom instruction. However, the student has the option of watching the session later, which allows more flexibility than in class. The asynchronous course, on the other hand, allows the student to do the course at his convenience during the week. Educational activities can take different forms, such as forums, quizzes, etc. This formula gives the student even more flexibility, but also requires more organization and discipline than if he took classes in class.
In addition, other advice is also recommended in this regard, including:
- Use labels to orient the students well, explain the educational objectives of each sequence and each activity, then clearly describe the instructions for the activities.
- Use activities to stimulate the learner's thinking, encourage interaction, sharing and collective production.
- Play on pleasure, develop fun and interactive activities.
- Illustrate the title of a course with an image inserted in the section, this can make it more attractive.
- Encourage exchanges between participants, especially between students, so that they actively participate in the course.
-To make it easier to read a document or an activity: choose a font, sans serif typography, choose a font size, a large font, use color for course keywords, bold of the font to highlight the words, the key ideas.
- Propose a discussion forum allowing students to ask questions, to address organizational elements, to exchange around concepts mentioned in class ... The forum must be moderated and you intervene to provide answers, additional information ... when the discussions are closed or to revive the debates.
- etc.
Certainly, there are many strategies that achieve effective learning through virtual teaching such as the method of discussion, differentiated teaching, etc. But more important is to foster a culture of virtual learning for students, and to enhance their strong motivation to participate.
Most of the online learning are in the form of tutorial. The challenge there is how to make each lesson synchronous, interactive, and engaging. Another challenge is for lecturers to upgrade their blended/online competencies as more students prefer self-directed online learning.
Viniciu, you're right in the sense that the coronavirus pandemic has stretched HE institutions and other education providers to find novel ways of delivering a curricula that were initially designed to cater for a face-to-face delivery. In responding to this sudden call, there have been a range of blended learning methods, including the diversification of learning activities to cater for the different learning needs, the digitalisation of its delivery and the spacing of what and how to teach remotely. Interesting new grounds for teaching and learning.
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