Have Your Students Glued to The Screen and Interested in What You Have to Say
What are some tips to be the best virtual teacher around with students glued to the screen? What a funny question for a teacher to be wondering! Only 18 months ago, the title of this article would have been how to get students away from their screens. Yet here we are, in a world of online learning, trying to keep teaching and learning going through digital technology.
In a bizarre turn of events in a COVID world, we are indeed seeking ways to keep students engaged and learning digitally from home. But let’s face it, it’s just not natural for students to be looking at a screen for a whole day, it’s hard enough for adults in offices to do it and they’re getting paid for the privilege.
However, this is indeed where we are these days, so here are some tips to be the best teacher around. Let’s take a look at some ways and means to mix things up a little to try and keep your students learning.
1. Take a Virtual Tour
Right now, the world has been deprived of traveling, visiting museums, parks, people. So, why not build some virtual tours into your lessons, let the class feel like they have moved away from their screens for a little while by taking a virtual explore elsewhere in the world. Teaching the class about the Eiffel Tower in Paris? Why not take a trip there to see it? Learning about different animals? Take the class to the zoo, virtually of course! No long-winded gathering of permission slips, no worries about losing a student along the way, and all the benefits of seeing the animals in action. The best virtual teacher becomes the best virtual travel agent! It doesn’t replace the real thing – but it can certainly add some variety to your class to keep it fresh and interesting. Websites like Ditch that Textbook and We Are Teachers have some great virtual field trips that are worth a look.
2. Gamification apps
One advantage of the advancements of digital technology is the opportunity to make learning interactive. Over the last decade, gaming has become a mainstream hobby that cuts across the generations from angry birds and candy crush on phones and tablets played by grandma and grandkid alike, to people playing scrabble with people on the other side of the world, not forgetting the PlayStation and Xbox games that have led many through the solitary days of the coronavirus.
In fact, half the students in high school nowadays even know how to code and set up these games themselves – there’s a nice little lesson for you!
While online learning is the current focus of education, it is important to try and implement some variation in the teaching and learning and gamification apps can help you do just that. They use motivations such as leaderboards and badges to help keep things moving and to support engagement offering great opportunities for teaching, learning, and assessment.
This Bookwidgets site has some great ideas of how to use gamification and a list of different apps so you can see what would work best for you. There are even apps tailored to help with classroom management. Classcraft, for example, lets you set up your class rules, and then each student creates their own avatar and gives themselves special powers. They play in groups to build on team spirit. And if someone breaks a rule or misses a deadline, they may lose points for the whole group. So it supports teamwork, helps reinforce rules, and helps students understand the impact their actions have on others.
This is just one of many different games out there, you also have apps like Gimkit and Kahoot where you can set up quizzes and turn your classroom into a game show set up.
Thankfully, things have moved on a little in the last decade too, so you no longer need a degree in Computing and Programming to understand how to use these apps anymore. So, take a look, you may just find you have an inner game show host inside you screaming to get out!
3. Build in some non-screen time
Being glued to the screen all day is a tough gig. I can’t even watch my favorite TV series all day long without wanting a break. So think of activities and projects that your students can get involved in that help them learn and develop while doing something that isn’t tailored around the computer.
Social isolation has become a huge concern throughout the pandemic, leading to mental health issues of all kinds. It’s important where possible to encourage students to get fresh air and make use of outdoor space (unless they are required to shield of course). Why not build some activities around taking photographs within your local community, or showing acts of kindness taking place?
Or maybe you can run a baking competition? Friday morning is bake something morning, you can run it as a competition with a 90-minute stop clock and then have a kind of ‘show and tell’ once you’ve finished seeing who has produced the best thing.
Mix it up. Have a different activity or competition every Friday morning. And get the students to suggest what the competitions should be.
Right now, it’s worth remembering that the best virtual teacher is not necessarily the one that is teaching their students the most academically. It’s the teacher that is bringing a touch of everything that the students need in their life. Social interaction. Emotional support. Fun and entertainment. And yes, still teaches them the curriculum.
Right now, our students need support that goes beyond the textbook. There is time in the future to make up for any gaps in the curriculum. Right now is time to invest in promoting group working, communication, and problem-solving. Learning to work together to support each other as a little community of kindness, hope, and togetherness.
Who are the best virtual teachers right now? Every one of you has risen to the challenge and worked tirelessly to deliver learning, education, and support to your students, and I’m sure some things you’ve tried have worked and some haven’t – so why not share your stories so you all have more and more ideas to work with – what’s worked best for your students?
