How to Improve Participation in Your Virtual Classroom

The Covid-19 pandemic forced everyone to turn to the internet to get things done, including students and teachers. Now, with professors and teachers getting comfortable with teaching online, they have found that it is not always easy to capture their student’s attention. This ends up with teachers trying out new and engaging activities to boost morale and keep students engaged in a virtual classroom.

Virtual Classroom in School

A virtual classroom in secondary schools in Abu Dhabi needs to meet the needs for asynchronous and synchronous learning. Asynchronous learning includes activities that allow independent learning. This can happen through pre-recorded sessions, assignments, and instructional videos that can take students through the study material at their own pace. Synchronous learning happens together in real-time. Teachers and students meet on a virtual platform to discuss the study material and ask and answer any questions that may come up.

Though synchronous learning can give a virtual classroom a more traditional feel, just a virtual lecture is not enough to hold a student’s attention. Hence, here are a few things teachers can try to catch and keep their students’ attention for longer periods.

Create Small Groups For Better Collaboration

Some virtual platforms allow a teacher to divide their classroom into small groups. This division allows the students to collaborate on an idea better and the teacher can move in and out of each group without any hassle. Groups can communicate with each other and the teacher through the chat box provided. Since the teacher can keep an eye on all groups created, the students are more likely to stay focused on their tasks.

Encourage The Think-Write-Share Process Of Learning

Teachers can monitor a student’s progress by presenting them with a question or a problem and giving them some time to think about it, allowing them to write down the answer on a piece of paper or their notebooks and show the answer on camera. By keeping a screenshot of the answers, teachers can see who is making progress and who might need more help in class.

Brainstorm With The Students

Before you assign any asynchronous activities to your class, it may benefit teachers if they brainstorm with their class. This will allow the students to write down and present their ideas in the later classes. This type of collaboration can also happen through chat.

Offer Benefits For Completed Work

Teachers in schools in Abu Dhabi city can boost their assignment completion numbers by offering their students some extra points for any work turned in by a particular time. This gives the students something to work for and ensures that students stay on task during school hours and stop pushing deadlines until the last minute.

Encourage Group Activities

Group work or activities encourage students to share ideas and collaborate without any friction. These activities could take place over the phone or by email. Teachers can also assign specific tasks for students so that everyone has something to contribute in a group setting.

There are many ideas that teachers can use to boost activity and participation in their virtual classrooms. Activities like collaboration, group projects, Q&As, etc not only help keep students engaged but also shape their personalities.