With the growth and development in educational technology, educators are now moving to create online courses to enjoy better flexibility, convenience, comfort, and many other such benefits. However, online teaching brings along many challenges for the teachers too. Making students focus through the computer or mobile screens can be difficult. To enhance the learning outcomes, and make the course successful, making students attentive in the online classes is important. Let us discuss a set of ways that online educators can follow in this regard.
7 ways to grab students’ attention in online classes
1. The ideal teaching space
To make students attentive, conducting the live session from an ideal and dedicated space is very important. If teachers teach from a noisy or distracting place, students face understanding issues. It leads to unnecessary interruptions in learning. To avoid this happening to you, make sure to give classes in a calm and peaceful place. The space should have a good internet connectivity rate. Also, make your background appealing so that students become more interested and attentive to learning.
2. Keep the lessons short and crisp
Detailed lessons and lengthy stories can cause boredom and poor class concentration. Make sure to deliver short and to-the-point lesson content.
- Cut down the irrelevant portions: giving too many details of a single lesson, and going beyond the curriculum set can be difficult as well as less engaging for students. To keep them attentive, make sure to cut down the irrelevant portions. Don’t dive deep into the topic. Yes, we know that teachers have subject expertise but no need to teach out of the box. Stick to the course structure.
- Make well-defined video presentations: to make lessons short and specific, make sure you prepare a video presentation. Only vocal explanations can be vast, or vague. Make a video presentation, and use headings, subheadings, and pointers. This makes the lessons more specific and easy to digest.
3. One-on-one questioning
If students will see that teachers are quite lenient and don’t ask anything, they will develop a chilled attitude and will surely lose attention. To overcome this problem, you must question students related to the topic being taught in the class. You can call out any student, ask them to keep their mike and camera turned on, and ask questions. When students know that teachers can question them anytime, they will surely become attentive in the online classroom. Make sure to cover as many students as you can. This will enhance the teaching and learning outcomes.
4. Be interactive
Teachers continuously explain whereas students simply sitting as mere listeners won’t work. With no opportunity to speak and share, students can lose their attention. Therefore make sure to be as interactive as possible. Conduct participatory activities like group discussions, recitations, question-answer rounds, presentations, debates, quizzes, and more.
5. Keep it visually appealing
Listening to the teachers reading out the textbook material is boring and difficult for many students. Today’s kids are highly attracted to technology and the same should be used in online classes too. Make sure to use audio-visual tools in the class. With the help of visualization, students tend to understand the concepts better and quicker. Learning becomes much more fun and interesting for them too.
- Videos: make sure to record high-quality videos for the students. The lively sounds, colors, and images, approach the students better. You can also download educational videos from other platforms and screen share the same in the live classes.
- Picture cards, PPTs, audios: today, there are a variety of tools available to teach. Develop a study material that is full of these engaging technical elements. Picture cards, demonstrations, animations, and PPTs are some of these examples.
6. Include a break time
Students have a short attention span. Being attentive throughout a continuous ongoing class can be difficult. So make sure to include a break time. Even a short break of ten to fifteen minutes is enough for students to re-energize themselves and be focused again for the rest of the class. Plan accordingly, and ensure time management to give a small break in every live session you conduct.
7. Have a friendly talk in between
For better online course selling, you need to deliver quality lectures to the students. To enhance the learning outcomes and teaching results, making students attentive is very important. Only academic discussions all the time won’t be very interesting for students. Make sure you have some friendly talks with them too. For example, ask questions like how is the day going, who all are doing to watch today’s match, what are your plans after the class, or crack a joke in between. All these talks make students enjoy and feel more connected with teachers.
Conclusion
With the growth and development in science and technology, online teaching platforms are growing rapidly. For successful online teaching, having students’ utmost attention in the classes is important. By following the above-mentioned tips, teachers can grab students’ attention in online classes. This will provide a proper academic understanding and leverage the learning outcomes of students.
