It’s easy to feel like you’re stuck teaching online. Stuck giving the same lessons and assignments over and over again. Whether you’re a college professor, teacher or even an online tutor, it pays to diversify your teaching methods. This is no easy feat, after all, when you teach online it’s difficult to be creative. You can bring in new ideas and create engaging lesson plans by using gamification, creating fun interactive assignments and joining the chat with your students. Also, a central part of making it fun is finding what works for each student so they enjoy each lesson enough to stick with the entire course.
I had the opportunity to guest post a little while back on the WordPress for Education Blog. I’ve written about how to make teaching online classes fun in the past, but this content is all about free short courses and teaching tips. I was also inspired by LearnUpon’s recent launch of their new eLearning platform for engaging content creation and delivery. If you teach or want to teach online courses, be sure to check out the resources linked in my post!
Digital Scavenger Hunt
Digital Scavenger Hunt is a game where the teacher compiles a list of items and activities that students complete by a given time. For an educational spin, teachers can match the items and activities to the lesson. For example, if you are a science teacher, consider adding simple experiments to the Digital Scavenger Hunt, such as putting Mentos in Diet Coke.
Virtual Pictionary
Virtual Pictionary is an online version of the classic game, where one player illustrates a word, while teammates attempt to guess it. Split your class into two teams, and text the word to the illustrator using Zoom’s private chat feature. The illustrator can then use the video conference software’s screen share abilities to show their drawing, while the other team members guess. Teachers can use Virtual Pictionary to teach vocabulary, and develop creative skills.
My window, my world
This is a getting-to-know-you activity. Start by taking a photo of your regular workspace (preferably including the closest window and what you see out of it when you aren’t looking at the computer). Prepare a short written description of it. Post both the description and the photo to your discussion forum* or class blog. Learners then do the same. You and the learners then read each other’s descriptions and comment on them.
It’s a great way to get a window into what the other people on your course are like. The idea for this originally came from our colleague based in Italy – Valentina Dodge.
*if you are using a VLE (virtual learning environment) then you will be able to set up different discussion forums for activities)
Five clicks away
This is a great reading activity that really can only be done online. First find a visually attractive web page on a topic of general interest to your learners. Choose one that has several links on the page, preferably in one area of the page. A news or magazine site will work well, or a site on a specific topic, such as the World Wildlife Fund or a film review site. Tell the students they must start at this site. They begin reading on whatever takes their interest. However, they are ONLY ALLOWED FIVE CLICKS away from that page. At the end of five clicks they stop browsing and take a screenshot of the page they reached and prepare a description of 1) the end page they got to and 2) the steps they took to get there. They post these to your course website.
It’s often very interesting to see how different people ended up in completely different places.
Follow that story!
Here’s another reading activity. Find a large news site in English and choose four to five news stories that you think “have legs” (that is, they will keep going for at least a week, e.g. the world cup would have been a good one in July). Give the list of news stories to the students, and provide them with the URLs to several news sites in English. They must “follow” their news story for a week, reading or watching items relating to it in English from a variety of news sites. At the end of the week, they summarise their findings into a report and post it on the course site (or email it to you).
What’s my line?
This listening activity works as a homework activity or even in a face to face class if you have a connection to the internet. But I’ve used it in distance courses too. First, choose a series of movie trailers for movies that are out or coming out now. Four to six should do. Watch each trailer and make a note of two phrases you hear in the trailer. Then add a “distractor”, a phrase that isn’t in the trailer but that could be. Give the students the title of the trailer and the three phrases. They have to watch the trailer and identify the distractor. This activity is always very popular, and learners can make their own “What’s my line” activities for a partner afterwards.
Present your best (online) self
Visuals
If your students can see you via a webcam, make sure that not only do you look presentable, but the location that you’re in does too.
Tip: a simple background works best to eliminate any distractions.
And that’s just the first step!
If students can see your face, it’s going to be 100 times more motivating for them if you look engaged and interested in what they are saying (even if sometimes this requires all your saintly teacher patience!).
Also, your visual materials must be up to scratch.
Make sure your slides look clean and clear and any videos you use are of good quality.
Audio
Try changing the tone of your voice to introduce new activities or mix up the tempo of your class!
Practice your storytelling skills and offer praise out loud. This can make a huge difference in encouraging your students.
And, again, make sure any audio clips you plan to use are of good quality.
Finally, this might be stating the obvious, but make sure you can teach your online lessons from somewhere with a reliable internet connection.
Nothing will have students switching off their attention quicker than a crackly connection that keeps on cutting out.
Use technology to your advantage
Teaching online comes with its challenges, but it also puts a whole load of really cool tools at your fingertips.
Whether you use whiteboards, pointers, virtual games, text editors, drawing tools, file editors, breakout rooms, or screen-sharing tools, you can use the technology you have to add variety to your lessons and keep students on their toes.
First of all, make sure you know how to use these virtual tools and take time to explain them to students, so they feel confident with using them too.
Then think about how you might use them to liven up your lessons.
For example, you could use fun rewards to entice students.
There is no kid out there whose eyes don’t light up at the prospect of 30 seconds of free play on a drawing tool!
Find what inspires your students
The good news is, just like in any face-to-face classroom, the real key to getting your online students involved is to find out what inspires them and gives them a reason to be engaged in the classroom.
Whether you’re teaching English online or you are a classroom teacher turned virtual, use the same mediums you would use in a real-life classroom.
Turn up the fun by playing music or just go to town with the drawing tool!
Don’t be afraid to try different things with your students until you find something that works for them.
Set goals and help your students stick to them
Another way to help online students stay on track with their studies (and keep a sense of purpose) is to set goals and remind them of their progress.
Setting goals for online learners
One simple way to introduce short-term goals into your online classroom is to make sure each lesson has a clear outline that you share with your student so they know where they are in the learning process and the context for any activity they are doing.
Then think about how you might reward students for finishing tasks (or, even better, for working hard) during a lesson.
You could try positive feedback, badges, points, playing games or doing other fun learning activities your students would like.
When it comes to long-term goals, going too far into the future might not be effective, but try taking time now and then to check in with your students and set goals together for the next month, three months, or six months down the line.
For short-term progress checks, make sure you build continuity between lessons by doing quick revisions or quizzes on previous topics.
A great way to remind students of their long-term progress is by building up a portfolio of work with them so they can look back themselves and see how far they’ve come.
One way of doing this online is to start an achievement page.
If you are teaching kids, every time they achieve something, you can go to the achievement page and ask them to draw something that reminds them of what they’ve learned (you might want to make it an achievement tree they can add to or a trophy shelf.) With teens or adult learners, you might prefer asking them to write something.
As the course progresses, the page will fill up with reminders of successes and proud moments for your students.
Keep it interactive
In a face-to-face class, it’s typical to give students some quiet reflection time to work alone or read a text.
But these kinds of activities don’t translate well in online classrooms.
Long, dense texts are challenging to read on a screen (it’s much easier to break things into chunks).
Silence just doesn’t translate that well in virtual classrooms as it provides the perfect excuse for a student’s attention to drift elsewhere!
Planning activities that keep your students actively clicking, typing or talking throughout the lesson is the way to go.
You can do this by asking lots of questions, including games and making sure learners have to physically do things like use drawing tools or type in the dialogue boxes.
And when you’re planning your lesson, you can make sure your student has to say something every three minutes or so.
Conclusion:
Online education is a very popular choice for many students and professionals alike. For those of you who teach online, you know that it isn’t the same as teaching a classroom of live students. “Virtual classrooms” require creativity and innovation from instructors to keep their students engaged in the class.