What is one of the biggest challenges that teachers of all disciplines, grades and ages and nationalities face? It is how to improve students’ engagement in class thus making the learning experience more rewarding and exciting.
There are tons of ideas, approaches, methodologies and techniques that teachers can try and integrate in their practice to turn even the most difficult and dry lessons into inspiring learning sessions that keep students interested and involved in the studying process. The approaches vary depending on students’ age, whether teaching online or in a physical classroom, students’ learning abilities and styles, and many more.
How to improve your online teaching experience and make it more effective and engaging?
Choose what new techniques and teaching approaches you can integrate in your teaching and start planning the lessons to be full of fun and educational activities.
What tips and tricks for developing engaging learning resources for online teaching can you use to enrich your database of materials, lessons and exercises?
The short answer is – use your own database of lessons, notes, recordings, ideas and materials and make the best use of outside resources on the Internet, like video channels, websites for games and many more.
- Storytelling
The power of storytelling can turn every concept, idea and topic into an engaging experience that grabs students’ attention and enriches their creativity, empathy and critical thinking. When storytelling is relatable and creates a personal connection to students they learn and understand on a deeper level.
How to create your own database of storytelling learning resources for online teaching? Explore various platforms to gather ideas based on true stories, quotes from books and movies, and use shows, videos etc. Make the best of any notes you have from brainstorming exercises at class. Ask your students for ideas and introduce creative brainstorming sessions etc.
The form of the content also matters. Use diverse types of content to develop storytelling resources. For example, have written stories in text, create presentations with visuals, short videos, voice over and many more.
- Something for everybody
If you want to develop the most efficient database of resources for engaging online learning, include a great diversity of materials, types of content and multimedia. In this way you will suit different learning styles and evoke students’ curiosity and willingness to learn and explore. It is important to search for and develop content in the form of videos, films, dynamic presentations, images etc. because this is how most of us learn best. Use sources like YouTube, Vimeo, and Social networks like TikTok to create your own collection of useful and fun resources that relate to the topics and make the learning more fun and exciting. It is a good idea to use voiceovers to enrich presentations and include various types of content, like text, visuals and multimedia to cater to all different learning styles.
- Create templates
Creating templates might not be the first thing that comes to mind when thinking of engaging online learning content, but in reality, being organized can help you best in providing selected resources in a form that your students enjoy the most. Templates can have different forms, shape, content and purpose. Every template consists of a structure of a lesson, exercise, activity, assignment, project etc. Their purpose is to facilitate teachers in the lessons’ preparation work by just editing and adjusting the content included in the template. Teachers use various sources for creating templates, like Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Forms as well as the features of the online whiteboard for writing, making lists, diagrams, doodling and etc. among other sources.
- Fun, fun and more fun
Do games have a place in the classroom? Absolutely, yes! Fun and excitement are great ways to attract students’ attention and grab their interest. Make sure to include a lot of games in your online learning sessions when it is appropriate. There are countless free resources in the forms of apps and websites dedicated to educational games that are worth exploring. Depending on the age of the students, you can include simple games like Hangman, Show and Tell, the Alphabet Chain or more complex games that you can play with the class. There are so many opportunities to turn games such as: Two Truths and A Lie, Would You Rather, Virtual Trivia, Virtual Pictionary and even Virtual Scavenger Hunt into a rewarding learning experience. Teachers often use games to encourage collaboration and teamwork when they divide the class into teams to compete against each other.
- Use your own database and collected materials and create your own
You know best what your students need and what makes them excited to learn. Take advantage of all the features in the virtual classroom and the online whiteboard and create your own resources for students’ engagement. You can use a recording of lessons or create completely new materials in the forms of images, diagrams, presentations, texts, etc.
- Use the advice from colleagues
When exploring new ideas for engaging resources for online learning, don’t miss out on asking for advice and exchanging ideas with your colleagues. You will be surprised at how this fresh perspective will boost your creativity for new ideas and resources.
- Drink from the source – ask your students
There is no better place to find ideas and get a real insight into what is working and what is not helping in increasing engagement than your students. Have discussions with them, ask for feedback and introduce fun activities like brainstorming sessions, games, and non-graded quizzes to get ideas for more resources that will bring your online teaching to the next level.
The rich collection of engaging learning resources will save you a lot of time and effort in the future and will make you enjoy online teaching more than ever. Your students will blossom before your eyes and achieve their learning goals while having fun and enriching experiences.
