10 Ways to Make Online Classes Interesting And Engaging

How to Make Online Classes Interesting And Engaging

This blog is to share some ideas on different ways to make online classes interesting and engaging for students studying from Home. The covid-19 pandemic has brought many unprecedented changes across the world. One of the hugely affected sectors by the pandemic is education because of the closure of all the Schools, Colleges, and Universities. Offline campus learning was replaced by online teaching and learning.

Re-calibrating themselves to online education has not been easy for both students as well as teachers and instructors. The teachers struggle to teach online because of a lack of exposure and training in using technological tools. On the other hand, students are experiencing difficulty concentrating in an online class because of a lack of classroom atmosphere, isolation, and deprived interaction with peers.

Although it seemed like online classes were a temporary solution during the pandemic, they are here to stay. Many educational institutions have opted for blended or hybrid learning, combining classes on campus with online teaching and learning. So, educators need to plan accordingly to make online lessons exciting and engaging.

10 Ways to Make Online Classes Interesting and Engaging

Here are 10 effective ways to make online classes more captivating to the students:

Try to engage in a conversation with the students

It is essential to talk to all the students in the class during interaction and discussion sessions in an online class.

The conversations can generate interest in learning as every student feel valued by the teacher. It further boosts the level of interaction in the class. The teacher must try to call out student’s names as it helps connect better with the students.

Use a Variety of Teaching Resources

The teacher must incorporate different teaching resources like videos, podcasts, images, presentations, etc. during the online class to make the class, engaging to all the students in the class. The teachers or faculties can use educational videos from YouTube or create their videos using different tools like Adobe Spark, Vimeo tools, Canva, Lumen5, etc. All these tools have their free and paid versions available online.

Faculties can also incorporate TED radio hour and educational podcasts on BBC into lesson plans to build interest in the class. Teachers can create presentations on Prezi, Canva, etc. an online presentation tools, where attractive templates are available. They can also design presentations using tools like Pear Deck and Nearpod, where students can contribute to the presentation during the class.

Use Icebreaker Activities to Start

Icebreaker is an activity or a game that helps the students warm up to the teacher and the classmates. Icebreakers enable the students to interact better with the teacher as well as their peers. Some interesting icebreakers that teachers can use in online classes are

Write a story –

Here, the students write a story together. Each student contributes a line, and it can lead to fascinating storylines. This activity also boosts creativity among the students.

Three words –

The participants must come up with three words to describe the given topic. They must be encouraged to put up the first three words that come to their mind. This icebreaker can lead to fruitful discussions and increases class interaction.

Introduce Online Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is a pedagogical approach where students work together in groups to enhance learning. Cooperative learning is an excellent opportunity to promote interaction in online classes. Students can work on projects together virtually through several means.

Padlet is a collaborative platform where students can build a bulletin board in a group. Students can also carry out a collaborative writing project on Google docs. They can create presentations on Google Slides, Canva, and other presentation software.

Take Real-Time Feedback from Students

Taking real-time feedback from students helps the teachers understand if they are moving in the right direction. This feedback can be a poll that the teacher can set up using tools like Mentimeter. Teachers can also create quizzes on Mentimeter.

Real-time feedback enables teachers to modify their pedagogy in the class based on students’ responses. This feedback can help make the class more interesting for the students.

Use Simulated Experiments

It is a massive challenge for educators to transact science content that involves experiments. The teachers cannot perform some experiments during the class because of the unavailability of the required apparatus.

The simulated experiment is an excellent solution for this issue. These virtual labs and simulations may not replace the actual laboratory. But they can help students understand the concept better.

PhET interactive simulation by the University of Colorado Boulder has created many simulated experiments in physics, chemistry, and biology. The simulations are available for free since PhET is an open resource project.

Test Student Learning using Online Quizzes

Educators can use easily use quizzes to test student learning. But it can be challenging for the teacher to engage all the students in the quiz during online classes. But there are many online tools where interactive and creative quizzes are available that can increase student engagement.

Kahoot and Quizizz are examples of online quizzing platforms. The quizzes involve a leader board and timer that can create interest among students.

Record the Class Sessions and Upload

When students miss out on a class, it isn’t easy to focus and engage during the next session. This discontinuity leads to decreased interaction and confusion related to the concepts being taught. The teacher may also have to spend time explaining concepts from the previous class again.

A solution to this issue is recording the online classes and making them available for the students. This can also help students learn at their own pace by replaying the class video. Most of the online teaching platforms allow users to record sessions. But it can vary when the institutions provide the access.

Create Breakout Sessions for Activities

The breakout session is an efficient way of encouraging engagement in online class sessions. Breakout session essentially means dividing the students into smaller groups from the main presentation to facilitate discussions.

These smaller groups encourage the reserved and introverted students to present their views. The facility of breakout rooms or sessions is available on most of the platforms like Zoom, Webex, MS Teams, and Google Meet, etc.

Use Smart Whiteboard to Write

Students are accustomed to the teachers using a board in the classroom. A board is an essential teaching aid in Science and Mathematics classes. The lack of board work can negatively affect online classroom engagement.

Teachers can address this issue by using interactive whiteboard software to mimic the board work from offline classes. Microsoft Whiteboard is one such tool that can be easily used in online classes. The teachers need only a pen and tablet. These tablets are available on the market at reasonable prices.

Conclusion

Online classes are the future of education. The teacher with skill sets required for effectively transacting lessons in an online class will stand out among other educators. Although educators are bound to feel daunting while incorporating online tools mentioned above, no special training is required to incorporate these strategies in an online classroom session. All it takes is a little bit of time, interest, and open-mindedness to learn something new. There is a good number of resources available online to learn and integrate these techniques for online classes.

Disclaimer: The content shared in this blog is based on personal experiences, observations, and self-understanding through research. The details provided here are to share my thoughts with people, only for educational and informational purposes, and it is not a piece of expert professional advice to the reader. The details mentioned in this blog do not bind or compel any person to follow the methods given here. The intent to write and share this blog is to communicate some insights on the possible solutions and methods which can help people to get motivated and encourage them to start using some of these methods to achieve positive results in life.

Keep Learning – Keep Growing!!!