6 Keys To Engaging Students Online
The digital generation practically lives online
, so its natural it be educated online as well, well partially atleast. Obviously, online learning is seeing great success and has fascinated both educators and students enrolled in higher education with its potential to engage students in context-based content and enabling them to personalize their learning process.Online learning is all about engaging and empowering students. Boring, rarely updated, and poor quality content of traditional media, like printed books, no longer satiates the academic appetite of todays students, who have the opportunity to leverage easily accessible digital tools to enhance their learning and add real world relevancy to their studies.
While discussing online learning environments, especially for higher education, student engagement is perhaps the single most important factor contributing towards the success of students, departments/programs, courses, and institutions.
Engaging students in a non-physical environment can be a challenge, but there are some keys you can follow to engage students online. They are:
Mentoring rather than teaching - The advent of digital tools and online educational resources has essentially changed the very dynamic of the student-teacher relationship. Students need to be guided today, not taught because they have the tools, the resources a click away. Thats why teachers today need to act more as mentors and facilitators helping students wade through the rigors of the curriculum, especially in online modalities. But because there are so many exciting tools available to todays students, it becomes even more exciting and challenging for a mentor to find creative ways to keep them enthralled about the coursework. And of course, there are tools to help out teachers as well
Developing an online learning community - Developing a learning community is considered to be the most powerful key to engage students in the learning process. Holding discussions and taking on group assignments through learning communities enable much needed social interaction and help connecting students and the educator. Besides, these learning communities can be used as a platform where adult learners can share their opinions and experiences. Such communities increase students retention as well as enhance their academic achievement.
Encouraging participation Students should be regularly informed about when they need be present in the online classroom. A participation framework should be created to encourage students to join the classroom at regular intervals and be actively involved in all that is being discussed in online classrooms.
Engaging through interactivity - Interactivity plays a vital role when it comes to engaging and motivating students in online learning. Well-crafted educational games easily draw learners and help them to fulfill their intrinsic desire of finding solutions to different problems in a playful manner.
Case studies are also helpful tools in online teaching and learning. Educators, by crafting case studies based on real-world scenario, can effectively boost the student engagement in the courses or subjects. Instructors can ask students the questions, such as how they would respond to the situation mentioned in the case study, making them competitive in handling real-life situations appropriately.
Engaging through debates - Conducting online debates is another excellent way to engage students. Educators can direct students to read a case study or article that can be used as a topic of debate and can also provide them how the directions in which the debate will be moderated. The students can be asked to write a position paper on the topic in order to defend their chosen viewpoints. These position papers can be uploaded online for peer review and further discussions
Integrating social media with education Social media is a great way to share knowledge. Educators can use social media effectively to share anything from deadlines of assignments to the list of student grades. They can encourage students to use social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook for educational purposes. Through these sites, students get a chance to discuss further study opportunities and various other things with students all across the globe. Also, students can use recruitment related websites, such as LinkedIn to explore internships opportunities and to get connected with the industry experts.
Online education affords unprecedented accessibility, interactivity, and engagement for students, but it is also changing the roles of teachers (and other stakeholders) to facilitators and faster this transition happens, the smoother will be the road to a better, more informed, more skilled future.
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