It eliminates the need for students to travel to a particular location for studying and saves institutions from spending money on printing learning material for students, which makes it a green practice.
One of the most preferred ways to host virtual classes is with the help of a Learning Management System (LMS). It is a platform that allows teachers to schedule and conduct online classes effortlessly. By streamlining the entire process, a LMS helps in the management of the student learning material by providing a centralized storage for it.
A powerful LMS like Absorb LMS benefits teachers, students as well as educational institutions like schools and colleges by making the process of delivering online lectures a piece of cake. But what happens if students don’t enjoy a virtual class and tend to doze off during the lecture?
Although it is hard to ensure 100% attention during online lectures, it is not entirely impossible. With a few tricks and tips, you can make a virtual classroom session fun and enhance student engagement. Here are 4 tips for an online teacher to make a virtual class fun and interactive:
Make it compulsory to keep the camera ON:
Body language has a major part to play when you are trying to convey any information. This holds true for virtual instructors as it will help students learn better if they are able to see you rather than just hear your voice.
Make sure you are seated in a clean and distraction-free area and keep your camera ON. At the same time, it is important to get the students to keep their camera ON as well so as to ensure that they are alert and participating.
Keep the topics short and concise:
Nobody likes attending long lectures. Keeping in mind the students’ attention span, break down the topics into small bite-sized chunks. If the class is focused on only one topic and is delivered in short sections with breaks in between, students will grasp content better.
This allows online teachers to maintain student attention without overburdening them with information. It also promises a higher rate of information retention.
Dedicate time for topics not related to studies:
Just because it is a class dedicated to learning doesn’t mean it can’t be fun! Bring fun into the virtual classroom by setting aside time once or twice a week for things that are not related to student learning.
These could be as simple as chatting with students about their hobbies or suggesting movies to watch. You can also encourage them to showcase any talent they may have like dancing or playing a guitar or sharing their artwork with the class.
Engage students in group activities:
One of the best ways to make a virtual class entertaining is by organizing group activities. Since the lack of social engagement in online learning often makes students feel isolated, working together with fellow students is sure to get them excited.
Planning activities based on their learning topics will ensure students take the effort to better understand the concepts. Introduce rewards for top performers to amp up the excitement. It will breed healthy competition in the class as students will want to perform better than others to win the rewards.
Conclusion:
Apart from the above mentioned ideas, online teachers should always make it a point to build connections with students individually by addressing them directly by their name. Ask them if they would like help on any topic or want to discuss a topic in higher detail. This makes them feel valued and promises higher engagement.