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As a teacher, do you regularly feel like you are talking in a vacuum during an online class? Do you work harder than the students during your online sessions? Do you regularly hear yourself asking if there are any questions? And is the standard answer you get "No"? Then throw your boring PowerPoint presentation in the trash and think about what other forms of work you can use to actively engage your students in your online classroom! In this blog, we'll help you get started.
In the previous blog explained Hester Hooijen, LOL consultant at Learning Connected, the added value of the online classroom. Do you also choose to start using the online classroom? Then keep in mind that interaction is the key to an effective and, above all, instructive lesson. Because, more interaction makes for better learning!
Why is interaction so important?
When there is no interaction, students wander off very quickly. Online, this risk is even greater, because as a teacher you cannot fully monitor what your students are doing during the online lesson. On top of that, students don't understand information they only hear and forget it faster than when they actively engage with the topic. A nice saying from the Chinese sage Confucius:
I hear and I forget
I see and I remember
I do and I understand
A statement every teacher should keep in mind when preparing a lesson!
Forms of work in the online classroom
The effectiveness of an online class is all tied together(?)with the way the teacher creates interaction in the online classroom. This certainly does not come naturally, but must be directed. How do you ensure a varied lesson? And what work methods and resources do you use for this?
For a learning lesson, it is important to use varying tools and forms of work. In the online classroom and on the Internet, there are countless possibilities to explore! Create interaction in the online classroom by, for example, using the 'raise your hand' functions, the chat or have the students break up into subgroups. Or find out if your online classroom contains a whiteboard, on which you can let students draw and brainstorm. To test whether the material has stuck, you can use the Q&A tool, create a poll or prepare a quiz. This can be done either in PowerPoint or in a nice tool for online quizzes, such as Kahoot or Microsoft Forms.... Or have students brainstorm and collaborate in Padlet. There are, of course, many more ideas where you let the student work with the material themselves! Above all, be creative in the variety of work formats.
Setting up an online class
After seeing this endless list of possibilities, you may wonder what an online class with enough variety and interaction actually looks like. Below we give you an example of an online lesson program.
Need help?
Do you find it difficult to choose which work formats or tools work best for your online class? Or are you not sure how to implement the tools in your lesson? We would love to help you with that. In our workshop "10 activating work methods" you will learn what interactive tools are available, practice using one of these tools yourself, and implement one of these tools in your own lesson.
