To combat the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, institutions must develop new and creative ways to engage students through orientation and across the summer. Tackling student engagement in the blended learning environment differs from the traditional classroom, but the basic methods hold true across the board. Using chat to check for understanding: After giving lessons last spring, Paul France had his third-grade students use the Google Chat feature to ask and answer questions or type in emojis, like a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, to show whether they understood a concept. Here are a few strategies I’ve found helpful to boost student engagement online: Frequent check-Ins; Engagement Accountability; Small Group Activities; Positive reinforcement 1. With just a three-week commitment, the first course in the Student Engagement Strategies for Virtual Classrooms series will teach you to engage students in virtual learning environments and maximize student learning. They aren’t,” wrote Tim O’Brien on Facebook. ; What’s something that surprised me about this topic? Moving your class sessions to a virtual space, such as Zoom video conferencing, brings new opportunities for active learning and student engagement. “It has been successful as a means to get kids to credit their peers with helping them come up with new ideas, which helps build rapport,” said Klima, who let students struggling with bandwidth call in to the meetings. A new twist on show-and-tell: To get students comfortable with online participation, Brittany Collins, the teaching and learning coordinator at Write the World, a global online writing community for middle and high school students, converted the familiar show-and-tell activity into “think, write, share.”. Competition between orientation groups for completed orientation activities, Develop Productive Student-Teacher Relationships, 3 models for differentiated mental health crisis responses on campus, CONNECTED20: EAB’s Conference for Student Success Leaders, “Drive-In” for campus gear and swag pickup, Mail out campus swag (postcards, T-shirts, giveaways), Orientation packets and yard signs sent to incoming students, Alumni outreach to students based on common interests, Building and/or touring your college campus on Minecraft, Campus legends/traditions module or webinar, Social media quick polls to get students excited about return to campus (e.g., Vote for a premium dinner in the dining hall), Twitch livestream sessions led by orientation leaders, featuring rotating campus guests, Email campaign highlighting virtual events for incoming students, Phone campaigns conducted by current students to welcome new students, Radio show or podcast focused on what incoming students need to know, Video series: “What Being a _______ Means to Me”, Major-specific webinars for incoming students, One-credit virtual summer class for incoming students, Texting campaign for incoming students about upcoming academic events, Video series spotlighting academic experiences, Faculty one-on-one mentorship opportunity, Virtual “study buddies” (pair students to meet), “Safety on campus during COVID-19” AMA with senior university administrators for admitted students’ parents, Facebook live orientation sessions offered in multiple languages, Modules on college experience for first-gen parents, Parent-champion-organized events like Zoom Happy Hours, Facebook groups for parents of incoming students, GroupMe or text-chat groups for parents of incoming and current students, Virtual introduction to campus career services for parents, Virtual club meetings or coffee hours (e.g., Black Student Union, Campus Republicans/Democrats, etc. For students to be as engaged as possible, effective strategies need to be put in place at the very beginning of each course. What do you notice (see, feel, know)? 1. March 30, 2020 BY JACLYN LEDUC Updated: May 14, 2020. Help students picture life on campus by recreating campus experiences like watch-parties for previous championship games and virtual open mics. Other principles of student engagement in a virtual classroom include feedback loops, gamification, curriculum design, instructional design, data quality and forms, and more. Demonstrate to cost-conscious Gen Z students that a degree from your institution can set them on a path to professional success. Most schools are adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic by providing at least some alternative or virtual learning experiences. How to Boost Student Engagement During Virtual Lessons. In every classroom, there are students who always have their hand raised to participate, and those who are hesitant to engage. Teachers offered a range of smart strategies, both synchronous and asynchronous, to integrate the values and the voices of all kids—even the quietest or those with disrupted schedules—into their classes this fall. “It helps to break the ice in a virtual learning setting where unplanned participation can prove challenging for some students,” said Collins. Seeing and critiquing peer work through virtual gallery walks: Virtual “gallery walks” give students an opportunity to view their classmates’ projects while learning from each other, according to Joe Marangell, a high school social studies teacher. Incoming students are eager to make new friends at their institution, but it’s hard to connect during large webinars. 2020 brought a series of challenges for higher education and schools in general. Student Engagement. “The great thing about teaching in a virtual environment is that you have the unique opportunity to individualize your instruction and personalize learning like never before,” says Laurel Beach, an Implementation Success Manager with Apex Learning, who has previously taught secondary English in a traditional classroom and served as a Lead Program Manager for Bay Virtual School. The challenges of getting students to participate have intensified during remote learning, we’ve heard from many teachers. Milwaukee area colleges commit to national "Moon Shot for Equity.". Adapting think-pair-share to Zoom: Ryan Tahmaseb, director of library services, says he found that giving more project-based learning activities to his elementary and middle school students—and allowing them more autonomy over assignments—naturally encouraged richer discussions in virtual learning. ... how to recognize trauma and gain strategies for helping students … Establish Effective Classroom Management 3. It appears you are trying to log in, but you have not accepted our cookie policy. Self-assessment exercises encourage students to develop their metacognitive muscles while providing the teacher with useful information about the factors that are positively or negatively impacting student engagement. What strategies can teachers and leaders employ in order to engage all students in distance learning? Moon Shot for Equity: An initiative to close equity gaps in higher education by 2030. "They need personal support, scaffolding, and reassurance that technology does not provide. Offer virtual activities with smaller, interest-based groups so students can connect with their peers in more informal settings. Online forums create back-and-forth dialogue: Angelina Murphy, a high school English teacher, said she used Google Classroom’s question feature to get her class to respond to readings and discussion prompts during remote learning this past spring. We have organized over 120 virtual engagement strategies in seven key areas: Students’ sense of belonging at their institution is critical to student success, persistence, and equity. ; What’s something I liked about this presentation? Build a Community of Learners 2. Plan for Collaboration in Flexible Groups 4. To create structure around the responses, he guided his students in creating norms around using the chat feature—they decided as a group to use only one emoji at a time, for example. Read More. Students are not robots. 4. Using Google Sheets, students provided feedback to their peers by answering the following prompts: What’s something new I learned about this topic? For synchronous learning, some teachers said they translated traditional discussion strategies from the classroom to live video chats, while others found that digital tools helped boost classroom participation. 2. Reset Password Students were given a prompt, broken into groups, and then placed into breakout rooms to discuss and record their answers on a shared Google doc, which allowed students to share their thinking in writing or read aloud. (More on our active learning page.)2. Student affairs administrators and student organization leaders are exploring innovative ways to connect their community members, effectively and efficiently manage their groups from a distance, develop social engagement and two-way communication strategies, and implement enriching interactive virtual events to a suddenly remote community. Before the live class, students answered questions independently, and then shared their responses at the start of the meeting as a jumping-off point for a broader class discussion. At the start of his live class, students briefly summarized the concepts they had learned together and then divided into breakout rooms to solve related problems in small groups. Develop Questioning and Discussion Hentz and Vacchio, 2020 ESTABLISH EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT BUILD A COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS Giving an early introduction to career services is even more important in light of significant economic impacts related to COVID-19. 1. If this issue continues, please contact EAB Help at eabhelp@eab.com for further assistance. These strategies apply to all learning environments, but they are especially relevant in the context of remote learning. Student Engagement Strategies For Virtual Learning. Encourage virtual backgrounds. STUDENT ENGAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR THE VIRTUAL CLASSROOM 4 Steps to Foster Student Engagement 1. Encourage self-assessment. France said the practice helped him check for student understanding and pushed students to engage more with the content. With students often now physically situated in their home environment, educators have increasingly experienced challenges in supporting students who have unique engagement … Like it or not, students and teachers now find themselves swimming in the ocean of virtual learning[1]—surrounded by hundreds of apps and online tools that promise to be the way of the future. Currently, it’s more important than ever to cultivate a sense of belonging and connection with incoming students, as colleges and universities face several new threats to their incoming class. Students need support when learning and accessing digital tools. Whether they’re introverted, tend to think awhile before they contribute, or are just having a bad day, it can be hard to bring kids into discussions who are reluctant to add their voices. The 2020 pandemic has accelerated this process. Engagement in a Virtual Classroom In terms of actually generating and maintaining engagement within a virtual classroom setting, there are a number of strategies and teaching methods that can be deployed, including each of the following: 2020-11-16 With the virtual classroom becoming more common, educators need to find student engagement strategies that translate to a new ‘space.’ The virtual classroom has several significant advantages, but unfortunately, it can be much more challenging to get students to feel connected to the material and the class itself. She said they enjoyed typing “T” or “F” for true and false questions while answering math problems in the chat box, and some even attempted to write sentences in response to her questions. Another great way to fight feelings of isolation among your virtual students is to assign partner, group, and class projects. Even […] Express your interest in this course by filling out the linked form. Educators share their best synchronous and asynchronous strategies to boost student participation during online learning. Recognize the important role families play in students’ academic journeys by engaging them across the summer, too. 2. Take time to frequently evaluate the strategies you are implementing and the tools you are using in the online classroom. When it came to class discussions, Tahmaseb adapted think-pair-share to Zoom. First, he taught new content asynchronously through recorded videos and online activities. December 2020. “We keep calling this generation digital natives as if they are simply whizzes at everything computerized. We will contact you when we have a date for the next offering. Virtual learning programs should be student‐centered and aim to improve student achievement, personalize learning, or provide students with more academic options. Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn Their Cameras On. 1. Get students excited about enrolling in the fall by showcasing all the academic opportunities your institution has to offer. So below are six strategies for increasing student engagement in the virtual classroom from high school to higher ed. Building community and … 8. In this post, I will share some of the methods by which I have worked to try to motivate my online learners to be engaged and control their learning. Student engagement and participation in virtual classrooms can be challenging. For many years, educators have been testing the waters of technological integration and teaching. 5. 1. Create a collaborative virtual community. December 2020.) The purpose of these tools is to draw students into the lesson/activity and make them engaged and looking forward to your next virtual class meeting. Partner with faculty on virtual lecture series or short introductory videos on different academic areas for students to explore. To combat the uncertainty caused by COVID-19, institutions must develop new and creative ways to engage students through orientation and across the summer. Once they returned to the whole class, volunteers from each group shared their answers with everyone. Using chat to check for understanding: After giving lessons last spring, Paul France had his third-grade students use the Google Chat feature to ask and answer questions or type in emojis, like a thumbs-up or thumbs-down, to show whether they understood a concept. To inspire connection and reflection among classmates, Linares also used Flipgrid (Apple, Android), so that students could hear their peers’ voices even though they were remote. 1. Kindergarten teacher Ruth Calkins, meanwhile, used Zoom chat when holding live lessons with her kindergarten students. Have Students Post a Picture and an Introduction This is a straightforward online engagement strategy. Prevent summer melt by making students feel like members of the campus community. Posts tagged virtual student engagement Virtual Learning How-To: Think-Pair-Share. Following each of these steps will help you create a digital course that promotes increased online student engagement and long-term learning success. Regularly ask students to reflect on their participation and engagement in breakout rooms.