How do we get students' attention and then keep them engaged in a virtual classroom?
Engagement. Engagement. Engagement.
Everyone has been talking and asking me about engagement strategies in online classrooms. So, I am going to flood this blog with components of an engaging virtual classroom.
I want to walk with each of you on what I would call a journey of building a dynamic and specific strategy of engagement catered specifically to your virtual classroom.
What do I mean by a “dynamic strategy of engagement?” Well, the trick here is, there is no “easy” button or magic answer when it comes to student engagement in virtual learning. Rather, there are infinite number of various tools and ideas for engagement that you COULD implement. Too often, I feel like people are quick to jump and say “if you want to increase engagement, then use this one tool, or do this specific thing to your virtual background and then your students will be engaged.” And these ideas are great potential components to your overall engagement strategy.
Here’s my take: just as in a physical classroom, teaching in an engaging manner is an art-form. Creating a true masterpiece of engagement requires many different techniques and colors all working together toward a common goal.
I would like to paint the picture of your virtual engagement strategy being like a big, healthy, blooming flower with unique petals. Each petal is unique and is held together by a sturdy core or center.
You get to create the perfect flower for your virtual classroom. Most of you have already done it in your physical classrooms and many of those petals can be translated into useful and effective cores and petals of your new virtual engagement strategy.
At Bein' Classy, we will walk through many amazing options when it comes to virtual engagement. We will look at components that will be the petals of your flower like digital tools on specific platforms and visual graphics for sensory engagement.
But what I’m even more excited about is that we will take it further. We will go all the way to the center of the flower. The core of your strategy. Engagement in your mind won’t just exist as an afterthought of how to present your content, but it will drive and form your content and lessons from the very start.
We’ll look at differentiated instruction, student-centered assessments, and tiered learning objectives, just to name a few.
If you started reading this blog hoping for a quick solution to virtual engagement, I am sorry that is not what you found here. Not because I don’t want to give it to you, but because I deep down I don’t believe it exists.
But I am confident I can help you build a highly engaging and effective classroom.
So be sure to subscribe to Bein' Classy and my YouTube channel to stay up to date with all things engagement, EDTech, and teacher things.