How to Encourage Student-Teacher Interactions in Online Teaching
This is the third in a series of articles on the pedagogy of effective online teaching and learning.
The Dreaded Eighty Minutes
Collins dreaded the next eighty minutes. He would have to stretch the ten-minute teacher monologue he had in his mind on today’s lesson to eighty minutes and hope none of his twenty or so static icons on his Google Meet class notice he was just stretching it. With occasional questions addressed to the whole group, to which only a delayed sleepy voice might respond in one-word ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ he would continue his dreaded drone. And all the while his eyes fixed at the clock atop his monitor to strike the minute he would end this Google Meet, only to repeat the same eighty-minute dread all over again after the prep break.
This is typical of so many of otherwise effective teachers, like Collins, who were pushed into this rodeo of ‘involuntary’ online teaching without an adequate training in the pedagogy of effective online teaching and learning. With such a training under his belt, Collins could have augmented student interactions with him by incorporating some of the following instructional strategies in his online lessons.
Five Ways To Encourage Student-Teacher Interactions in Online Classes
- Emphasize Live Human Presence: Encourage students to turn their cameras on. This is little tricky but necessary. Create an online culture of openness and trust by asking students to turn their cameras on, so as to enhance a sense of physical presence. Barring legitimate privacy concerns, reach out to parents to encourage their children to be live on camera during a Zoom or Google Meet session. This is the first step towards creating presence in a synchronous learning environment. Student and teacher presence is a precursor to engagement and interaction in a lesson.
- Integrate Spontaneous Live Online Q and A:
Ask frequent (at least once every 4–5 minutes during an online lesson) open-ended questions of students by name. Random name generators like this one (www.wheelofnames.com) can add an element of surprise to student name picking for random questioning. This keeps students expecting of being called upon for checking for understanding any moment. Copy and paste all the names on your roster at once on this website and share the spinning wheel page with your students via Google Meet or Zoom during live classes. Whichever name comes up will be the next one to answer your questions. A lot of fun and randomness in this strategy.
3. Use Digital Whiteboards/Cork Boards for Interaction: Use interactive whiteboard/cork board features to engage students in whole-group live snippet sharing, or create open-ended polls and single-question mini quizzes with sticky notes on these digital boards. Google’s Jamboard is a free digital whiteboard/corkboard solution at http://jamboard.google.com. It’s part of Google Education Suite and can be integrated into Google Classroom.
Google Slides can also be used for live student interaction during synchronous as well as individual asynchronous, yet interactive, student-paced lessons. There are other freemium and paid applications, like Nearpod and Peardeck which also allow for interactive brainstorming during live lessons. Both of these applications also allow for integration within Google Classroom. I strongly recommend checking these two applications for their built-in libraries and eye-catching interactive tools. For teacher-focused whiteboard instruction, there is Canvas Chrome App at http://canvas.app.chrome. A quick Google search for ‘interactive online whiteboards’ brings up at least ten different options. Depending on the technology limitations of your particular school, one solution might be better suited than others. Test drive a few until you find the right one.
4. Completing The Learning Loop With Online Assessments: Short, graded quizzes and polls using Google Forms not only accentuate student-teacher interaction, they also provide instant feedback and follow-up mini lessons upon student submission of these assessments. You can learn more about using Google Forms for assessments, feedback, and follow-up mini lessons to complete the learning loop by clicking on the link under the blue image below. Also, there are freemium versions of Kahoot, EdPuzzle, Kaizena, and Screencastify which can also be used for expanding the student-teacher interaction loop. Here is a preview of my workshop on the student feedback through interactive assessments on Nearpod. Click here to access for free!
5. Create Extended Online Communities: Extending regularly scheduled online class time to informal (unsupervised) student communities through social media (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp etc.) could substitute recess time in school. This is where students hang out at their own time to discuss academic and personal issues. This is where small groups evolve organically which generate matter for future online discussions back in class. This is also where students let their guards down and ask for help from their peers in more intimate setting. Placing Ask-your-teacher or Message Me widgets in these online communities can instantly provide opportunities to communicate with teachers in informal setting. Most social media applications allow for Message Me/Ask-me-a-question features for group or page admins. If Google Form embedding is allowed on such pages, it can offer instant review and remediation of questions raised in such informal settings.
Note: This article is part of a series of collections that makes the basis for Dr. H. M. Saleem’s LIVE Interactive Online Workshop series: The Best Practices For Effective Online Teaching and Learning. To know more about this workshop series and to register for the upcoming schedule, please visit www.keynote180.com.
