Have you ever thought about teaching online? If so, you’re not alone! The idea of getting paid to teach students via video chat is very appealing. Your students can learn at home and you can work from anywhere in the world. Teaching elementary students online is a fun and rewarding job that also offers opportunities to grow. With this guide, we aim to provide you an overview of how to teach elementary students online, as well as related helpful tips!
Elementary-aged kids (and many high schoolers, too) LOVE technology. I remember my first computer at home was an old IBM 286. It was slow as hell and ran DOS 5 or 6. It had a trackball attached to the front of it and it was great for playing Oregon Trail and Where in The World Is Carmen Sandiego?. “But what does this really have to do with online classes?” I hear you asking. Well, if you’re going to teach elementary-aged students, it behooves you to use tools that capture their attention, something they can use on a daily basis that they will find fun and interesting. And if you ask me, there’s no better tool to capture students’ attention than a
Through teaching students and training educators, I’ve learned a lot about how to effectively create and implement digital instruction and self-paced learning. I’ll share a few tips below, and if you’re looking for further support on developing effective distance learning beyond what I discuss in this piece, explore the resources on our website or start our free online course, Building Modern Classrooms.
Here are some pointers that can help you create a sustainable and engaging distance learning experience for your students.
1. SIMPLICITY IS KEY
Every teacher knows what it’s like to explain new instructions to their students. It usually starts with a whole group walk-through, followed by an endless stream of questions from students to clarify next steps. While this process can be frustrating at times, students can always rely on each other and the teacher in the room when they’re stuck.
One of the challenges of distance learning is that you and your students are no longer in the same room to collectively tackle misconceptions. Instead, the large bulk of learning time is inevitably going to be driven by tasks that require a high level of self-direction.
As a result, simplicity is key. It is critical to design distance learning experiences that have very clear instructions and utilize only one or two resources. It’s also best, when possible, to provide resources like readings as PDFs that students can always access.
Keep in mind that simple structures can still require rigorous work: Tasks with few instructions often lead to the greatest amount of higher-order thinking, as students figure out what to do within defined parameters. Distance learning should push educators to think about how they can be leaner and more concise with their delivery of new information.
2. ESTABLISH A DIGITAL HOME BASE
In the spirit of simplicity, it’s vital to have a digital home base for your students. This can be a district-provided learning management system like Canvas or Google Classrooms, or it can be a self-created class website. I recommend Google Sites as a simple, easy-to-set-up platform.
You need a single digital platform that your students can always visit for the most recent and up-to-date information. It can be tempting to jump around between all the cool edtech applications out there—especially as so many of them are offering free services right now—but simplicity and familiarity are invaluable. Students need to feel comfortable going to the same place to access the same tools. The farther away you are from your students, the more important it is to cultivate stability and practice norms.
Additionally, if attendance was a challenge before, distance learning is going to magnify it. So students need a place to go when they fall out of the loop. Filling in gaps is only going to get harder when the teacher cannot quickly engage in individual or small group instruction. Your students are going to need to take control of their own learning. Your goal is to create a clear framework that allows them to do that. You might want to check out a unit I created on probability and statistics to see how I provided instructions and set up checkpoints for my students.
3. PRIORITIZE LONGER, STUDENT-DRIVEN ASSIGNMENTS
Efficiency is key when designing distance learning experiences. Planning is going to take more time and require a high level of attention to detail. You will not be able to correct mistakes on the fly or suddenly pivot when kids are disengaged.
To effectively manage your time and sanity, you will want to prioritize longer, student-driven assignments and tasks that buy you time to keep planning future units—and that get your students off the computer. Focus on building toward long-term projects where students have autonomy and a clear set of checkpoints and deadlines that need to be met. When possible, create opportunities for students to discuss what they’re learning with their families and include an element of student choice to really build engagement.
Check out a project set up by Modern Classrooms’ co-founder, Robert Barnett, that integrates choice and family engagement: Demographer Challenge.
4. INDIVIDUAL TOUCHPOINTS ARE GAME-CHANGERS
What your students will miss the most is the human connection that is cultivated in your classroom. The little interactions you have with them in the hallways, before and after class or during breaks in lessons, are irreplaceable. While it can be tempting to focus on content in your distance learning assignments and instructional videos, what matters more is creating structures for personalized touchpoints with your students.
You can create these touchpoints through any medium you like: emails, video messages, phone calls, messages through your learning management system, comments on shared documents, etc. Create a structure and stick to it. Your students will see your investment and know that you care about them.
5. Find and utilize the right EdTech for your needs.
Collaborate with fellow educators and identify specific needs to find and implement the best tools for your classroom.
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Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Adapt Your Lesson Plans to Different Types of Learners
We know you’ve already put endless hours into your lessons plans, tweaking and perfecting them. Don’t feel like all that work has gone to waste! There are a bunch of different online learning strategies to adapt your in-person lesson plans to fit the virtual environment. It just takes a little creativity and the right tools.
1. Add discussions to increase engagement and comprehension.
An unbeatable tool for asynchronous discussions is Flipgrid. Instead of typing, students record themselves answering your posted questions. They can view and respond to each other’s videos, as well. This is a great option for reluctant writers, a strong way to boost engagement, and promote active learning.
For written discussions, Google Classroom is a great tool. You simply post the assignment instructions, let students post their answer, and then they can read and respond to others. Check out How to Teach From Home with Google Classroom and Albert for more tips.
For synchronous discussions, chat rooms like YO Teach allow students to message back and forth in real-time. Fair warning- these chatrooms require active monitoring from the teacher side.
2. Utilize screen recordings to pre-record yourself and your lessons.
For the Powerpoints you’ve already created, screen recording software like Loom or Screencastify allows you to record your presentation on-screen as you speak and click through your slides. It even has the option to include a little window with your face on the screen, so your students can still see you. These videos can be downloaded or shared via weblink.
Beyond just lessons, you can also record yourself explaining assignment directions, for those students who do better when verbally told what to do.
3. Make your lessons interactive and engaging.
Nearpod is one way to make online classes more interactive. It’s a dynamic tool that allows students to follow along and participate in your lessons on their own devices. First, you import your pre-existing lessons pdfs or Powerpoints. You then can add in places for student interaction: written responses, drawings, quizzes, polls, collaborate boards, and more. You can differentiate the type and difficulty of assignments for different student needs.Try Albert for free with your school
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Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Set Clear Expectations with Students
Strong classroom management is as essential in the online environment as it is in the traditional one. Even though you won’t be physically seeing your students every day, read on for 5 effective online teaching strategies to hold them accountable.
1. Post behavior expectations in every live discussion.
Make your rules/expectations crystal clear from the outset, especially in live discussions. You’ll probably find even the quieter students feel more bold typing in the chat- which is great when it’s positive conversations, but not-so-great when it gets off-topic or inappropriate.
In your first synchronous lesson, spend time discussing with your students what you as a class want your “Online Classroom Norms” to be. Create a list of around 8-10 norms, including specific rules like “stay on topic,” “always be kind and respectful,” “raise your hand and wait to be called on before turning on your microphone.” After you create the norms, review and share the document before every live lesson.
2. Set and enforce consequences in live discussions.
The same in any classroom, it’s just as important to enforce your expectations as it is to create and share them. If a student is negatively participating, you can easily mute or remove him or her from the lesson. Then, follow up afterward with a phone call home to discuss the situation.
3. Find your positive reinforcement.
My students used to love cleaning the whiteboard, or getting small pieces of candy. But online, these rewards don’t translate. However, it’s still just as important to reward students to reinforce their positive behavior. Some ideas include:
- Public shoutouts: Recognize star students in your emails to the class, during synchronous lessons, or post them on a public board. A board like padlet can even let students post shoutouts recognizing each other.
- Private shoutouts: Send students and their families individual messages when they’ve done a great job.
- Student choice: Allowing students to make even seemingly small choices can be motivating. Let a student choose which song to play before the lesson starts or choose a fun image for your virtual Zoom background.
4. Set clear due dates.
Many students struggle with time management. Without a rigid school day schedule, it’s easy for students to lose track of time and fall behind on their work. Set due dates for everything, and send frequent reminders. By the way, check out our free teaching strategy discovery tool.
Where possible, chunk large assignments into smaller ones to help students keep on pace. For example, if assigning an essay, set a due date for the outline, the rough draft, and the final essay. This helps force the “wait til the last minute” folks to move forward at a steady pace.
5. Use acknowledgement forms.
In this online environment, you’ll find yourself inevitably wondering, “Does anyone even read my emails?” To guarantee your students read and understand any especially important communications, add a link to a quick Google Form where a student and/or parent will type their name to acknowledge they read and understood it.
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Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Build Rapport and Community with Students
Without the natural opportunities to make connections in a traditional classroom, it’s important to create these spaces in the online setting. We share easy best practices in online teaching to build your classroom community:
1. Use interactive Flipgrid discussions.
With Flipgrid, you and your students can respond to topics you’ve posted with a selfie video. Students can view everyone’s responses and then post a video reply. Though these aren’t synchronous discussions, seeing and hearing you and their classmates helps to form a community bond.
2. Incorporate purposeful free time.
Allowing 10 minutes before a live lesson for students to enter early to chat with you and each other, is a great way to foster important, informal connections. If possible, host a half hour recess once a week, where students can log into a live meeting room just to hang out. If conversation lags or needs direction, you can facilitate topics with fun icebreakers and “would you rather” questions.
3. Have a regular show and tell.
The virtual classroom makes show and tell easier than ever! You set the topic (their pet, their favorite outfit, something from a fun vacation), and students can turn on their video cameras and microphones to share in a lesson. Alternatively, you can include your show and tell in the bottom of a weekly email update. Students can share videos or just pictures and a caption- whatever works best for you!
4. Utilize a class message board.
Padlet is a great tool for creating a collaborative class message board. Students can wish each other happy birthdays, share exciting events in their lives, or post shoutouts and encouragements to each other. You can adjust Padlet’s settings so that all messages have to be approved by you before posting.
5. Remember the value of a personal phone call.
Just reaching out and speaking with your student one-on-one builds an essential bond. It can be overwhelming if you have a large class, so set a goal to speak with a certain number of students each week to ensure you’re reaching everyone. If you don’t have a work phone, create a free Google Voice account so families don’t have access to your personal number.Try Albert for free with your school
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Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Connect with Parents
We know that parent involvement strongly impacts student performance in school. Research shows the importance of teachers and parents developing relationships based on trust, respect, and solid communication.
In the online environment, parent involvement looks very different. As the person physically with the student, parents are now responsible for making sure their child is staying on-task and logging into the computer each day to complete assignments. It can take some parents a while to adjust to their new role. As the teachers, we must find ways to connect and support our parents, provide online learning strategies for students, and keep them involved throughout the school year.
1. Send frequent reminders with Remind 101.
This is a great two-way communication tool, that allows you to send both mass and personalized text messages. Parents who aren’t fans of checking their email or logging into their LMS account every day benefit from receiving timely reminders like these directly to their phones:
- Class events, times, and locations
- Due dates for upcoming assignments or test days
- Links to resources, videos, and articles
2. Share out weekly newsletters.
Newsletter emails help keep families informed and involved with the happenings in your class and the school. We recommend including pictures and highlighting student achievements to keep parents engaged all school year. Lucidpress offers a number of different, free templates to choose from.
3. Be clear and consistent with your expectations.
Parents want to know what they can do to support their child’s learning, but don’t always know where to start. Having clear conversations about your goals and expectations for the school year helps. In the transition to online learning, we can discuss parent expectations like:
- Checking their child’s due dates and what they’ve submitted each day
- Checking the posted grades for each class
- Reading and responding to teacher emails and calls
- Reaching out with any questions or challenges
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Strategies for Teaching Online: How to Find the Right EdTech Tools and Curricula Supports
With so many different tools out there, it can be overwhelming to find the one that’s best for you and your students. Our distance learning hub is a great place to start. You can also use these simple strategies to make your selection process easy and effective.
1. Utilize these 100+ Distance Learning Tools.
We provide a comprehensive guide of 100+ distance learning tools and strategies for effective student engagement. If you’re unsure where to begin, or just want to explore new technology, start with this list. It’s organized by both instructional need and content area.
2. Collaborate with colleagues.
Even though you’re not seeing your coworkers in the hallway every day, they’re still one of the most valuable resources you can find. It can be easy to feel isolated working home alone, but remember to reach out and ask what your fellow teachers are doing in their virtual classrooms. They’re all researching and testing out new strategies and tools just like you are, and sharing your mutual findings benefits everyone.
3. Supplement your Curricula Needs.
When you need to supplement your curriculum with ready-made online activities, Albert has engaging, standards-aligned resources across grade levels and subjects. While many resources are free, educators are encouraged to try Albert for free. Tips for teaching English online using Albert include varying our leveled readings in STEM and across topics to generate interest among different students.
4. EdTech Digital Promise Framework.
This process helps educational leaders select and run successful educational technology pilots in their schools. The steps include how to identify a need, discover and select a product, train staff, and much more.
5. Always do a test run before using a new tool in class.
After you’ve selected the new tool to try, create a mock class to assign work to. Log in and test out your activity as a student, so you can truly see if this will work for your class. Also, you’ll be able to help troubleshoot common problems that you might not have noticed from just your teacher log-in.
Conclusion
If you have been searching for a way to supplement your teacher salary or just looking for a job as a teacher, you have probably considered the idea of teaching online. I know that I have considered it but never really took the chance until recently.