How to create engaging lessons for online learning
- Erika Tepler
- Nov 24, 2020
- 6 min read
The start of this year has been bumpy for all of us. As teachers, we are coping with our own personal anxiety along with that of our students and their families. We are learning new safety protocols with our students and living with the constant uncertainty of whether or not we’ll be open or closed next week.
Apart from all of this, most teachers are expected to be engaging students in online learning. For many teachers this has been a radical shift that’s left heads spinning. However it’s also a precious gift.
Rather than try to replicate what we’ve done in person through video calls, we have been given a unique opportunity to rethink education and teaching. Educators everywhere are being forced to explore novel methods that foster curiosity and spark the imagination.
Right now nobody has all of the answers, which gives educators the tremendous freedom to experiment with our pedagogy, celebrate new successes and learn from our failures.
Whether it's asynchronous or synchronous classes, hybrid or fully remote, teachers everywhere are searching for ways to make online learning fun and engaging. Here are a few simple tips.
I’m sick of hearing how tech-savvy kids these days are. Why? Because they’re not. Sure, teens know how to add pretty filters to their photos and find questionable images, but they have no idea how to effectively search Google for reliable information, create infographics, or make a spreadsheet do their math homework. And I’d be thrilled to find a student who can type quickly.
Teachers can learn alongside their students and guide them through the process of acquiring new tech skills. There are thousands of tools to explore that make learning more accessible, fun, and efficient. Invite students to browse through apps and extensions that could make their lives easier. Grammarly, Kami, and Screencastify are interesting tools trending across the country. Allow students to try something new and share it with the class. Maybe Notion? Slack perhaps?
It’s okay to not have all the answers and make discoveries as we learn. After all, that’s what we want from our students.
Mini-Project (high school science): Students generate questions about their local government’s response to the pandemic and create infographics that represent both qualitative and quantitative information they find through research. For easy infographics, try Canva.
Whenever we explicitly attach time frames, standards, or extensive requirements to student learning, we limit them. It might seem counter-intuitive and contrary to much of our long-held beliefs as educators. Don’t students need to be given strict guidelines to form good habits? Won’t some students do nothing and fail?
Yes, students need some guidelines, but too many and they become boundaries that stymie natural inquiry and curiosity. And yes, some students will do nothing and fail-- but much fewer than one would imagine and generally fewer than in a traditional setting.
Students need the freedom to reach their full potential. We do not know how high they can soar until we remove the ceiling. Asynchronous learning allows students the quiet, personal space to pursue new knowledge while gaining valuable skills of self-regulation, perseverance, and time management.
Asynchronous learning, paired with regular conferencing and small group discussion yields creative and unexpected results.
Inquiry-based instruction that involves thoughtful questioning, research, guided lessons, and authentic products naturally matches with online learning. Well-planned inquiry projects can easily be done in an asynchronous or hybrid model because they capitalize on students’ natural curiosity and inquisitive minds.
Many of our students don’t have someone standing over their shoulder at home, pushing them to work hard. To engage students in online learning, we need to meet them where they are and use their interests to guide skill acquisition.
Students will never exercise critical thinking skills if they are apathetic about what they are learning. Given the distractions students face at home–the phone, the TV, perhaps siblings or chores–students need to love what they are doing and have a genuine curiosity that pushes them to focus.
In order to build critical thinking skills and foster curiosity, students need to be asking questions that interest them: The questions they want answered. Learning how to formulate a question and find the answer is the most valuable skill we can teach our students in a world that gives us a constant onslaught of both information and disinformation. All of this can be easily brought into an online classroom.
Guided Inquiry Strategy (social studies): Who should be president? Have groups of students generate questions that need to be answered for them to choose an adequate candidate. Different groups should focus on distinct sets of questions and conduct research. Mix the groups and have students share out what they’ve learned. Conduct a mock election, then discuss and analyze the results.
Failure should be a natural part of the growth and learning process yet students fear it and often take the safest route to avoid low grades or the uneasy feeling of having done something wrong. This mindset needs to be corrected to allow for natural inquiry and expanded learning.
Last year I gave 8th-grade students the following assignment: Redesign our city for the future. I provided guidelines and a rubric for the assignment, but generally, let them go wild. They knew that after two weeks they would have to present their work. They generated questions about what our city will need, why, how it is currently designed, and what technology can be incorporated. They learned about reliable sources.
A student came to school one day with a 3D printed design for apartment buildings that include hanging gardens. She had designed it on paper after researching green architecture, learned how to program the printer, and created a digital interior design.
Her entire process could have been done from home. In fact, most of it was done after school and she would just check-in with me during class time. We weren’t remote yet, but we might as well have been.
We must create a classroom community that forgives mistakes. Give formative assessments often, but leave them ungraded and provide the opportunity to try again. All too often I see quizzes with low grades in the garbage. Who hasn’t handed something back only to watch a student dump it in the trash on their way out the door? We can avoid this if we give kids the chance to use the quiz to improve and get another shot at demonstrating their learning.
Project and problem-based instruction gives students the time and space to try something new, fail, and try again. As students work to complete a large assignment, we can conference with them regularly to guide them. Another student working on city redesign got deep into research about pavement technology. Yes, an 8th-grader nerded out on the streets. He talked to me constantly about photovoltaic blacktop. I listened to validate his interest and show respect for his research, then gently nudged him to review the assignment to make sure he was getting the broader picture as well.
When the solar roads student presented his work, he was missing some key information. Strictly following the rubric, he should have lost points. However, he had demonstrated creativity, critical thinking, and a new curiosity for science and technology. It wasn’t perfect, but he had been thoroughly engaged in meaningful inquiry.
As teachers, we are consistently hard on ourselves because we are so invested in our students learning and this year, they might just not meet all the standards. But we have to let go and allow ourselves to experience the joy that keeps us coming back each September.
Fun break: Play Blanco Brown’s “The Git Up” and learn the line dance as a class. Let kids keep their video off if they must, but get silly at any grade level.
2020 just isn’t a year to be hard on ourselves. Districts and states have set enormously high expectations for teachers without taking our prior skills into account. Very few of us have mastered online learning. Sometimes the internet will go out, maybe our lessons won’t be uploaded properly, perhaps we’ll arrive late to a few Zoom meetings.
That’s ok.
Engaging students in online learning will become easier and we learn to utilize technology and explore new ways of teaching. We have to let go and allow ourselves the same room to learn and grow that we give our students.
Comments