Student Participation Online

 

 

In a situation where students are either not motivated or anxious to participate, it can be difficult to know what to do to encourage them to participate. There are many ways to respond to these students. Some of these ways include calling on students who aren’t participating, designing instruction to include things the student is interested in, providing a safe classroom environment, and a one-on-one conversation with their instructor about their lack of participation. Sometimes all a student needs to participate is the knowledge that they will not be judged for a wrong answer. Alongside all these strategies, the most important thing to do for your struggling student is determine the cause of their disinterest, whether it’s a deficit in their skills or performance.

               A skills deficit is when a student does not have the skills needed to complete the assignment they are given. An example of this could be when a student in the 5^th grade cannot read. Their skill deficit in reading would make it more difficult to complete assignments and make them less motivated to learn. We can support students who have a deficit in a skill in many ways. Alternate assignments can be given that better suit a student’s skillset or work on improving the skill they are struggling with. Another method that can be used to support students is through methods of intervention. Additional instructional time with an intervention specialist or in special education setting can give students with a skill deficit a way to practice and develop their skills in a nonjudgmental setting. An online alternative could be through providing educational tutorials through Kahn academy or a similar educational site. 

               A performance deficit appears in students that have the skills necessary to complete an assignment but lack the motivation to do so. An example of this could be a student who is bored with the content they are presented with because it is not intellectually stimulating to them. Some ways to help get performance deficit students interested and motivated to participate include a discussion over email or video call about why the student is uninterested, giving assignments with content the student finds interesting, environmental changes, and pairing the student with another student who is motivated to do well on the assignment. These can be harder to accomplish in an online setting, but can be adapted to each student. 

Student Engagement Strategies for Online Education

    In this new age of education, students can learn from virtually anywhere. Alongside the developments of new online courses, ways to engage students and keep them engaged must also develop. There are many ways to keep student engagement through an online course. Some examples include frequent instructor communication, groupwork, clear PowerPoints and visuals, organized course formatting, and discussion boards for students and teachers.
    Students are more likely to engage themselves with the content when there is clear communication between the student and their teacher. Groupwork between students in online courses help motivate students to work together to solve problems. Interesting visuals in PowerPoints in conjunction with an organized course formatting can grab student attention and keep it for long periods of time. Finally, discussion boards can be a very important way to share ideas between teachers and students. Students can share their ideas on topics within the course, and teachers can direct the conversations to new ideas as appropriate. 
      

Online Classroom Assessments

 

Nearpod

 

            The educational application Nearpod has been gaining traction in recent years because of its intriguing approach to learning. This application provides many features that are beneficial to teachers and students. There are interactive polls and activities that can be built into slideshows that let students participate in the lesson in a unique and interesting way. Different lessons are provided by the platform, which you can edit and adjust to fit your class’s specific needs. These features also provide the teacher with necessary feedback that they can use to improve their lesson. The usage of gamified lessons also helps to keep student engagement and makes learning more interesting for them. 

The drawbacks of this application may not be obvious immediately, as there is so much potential for creating an exciting environment that fosters learning. However, there are some limitations. Teachers who use Nearpod independently from their organization do not have access to all its features. Nearpod Programs is the paid subscription that is used schoolwide to help develop lessons and enhance learning. This program is not available to teachers with independent accounts or school districts who cannot pay for it. It can prevent students from getting high quality lessons they deserve. Despite this, the base features of Nearpod are still useful and helpful to independent teachers and their classes.

Through the many diverse features Nearpod provides, teachers could use this platform to create lesson plans. Nearpod has partnerships with renowned learning websites like PhET and LearnZillion, which provide many different learning resources to enhance lessons. Interactive activities like labs, VR experiences, and gamified lessons can help students gain knowledge they can bring with them everywhere for the rest of their lives. 

AR in the Classroom

Augmented Reality, also known as AR, is a special type of technology that blends digital software with real world experiences. This technology is used in the classroom to enhance lesson plans. Elements 4D is an AR app that lets students create complex chemical reactions and see the aftermath from the comfort of their own classroom. 

Teachers who use Elements 4D print out templates provided by the app that represent different elements on the periodic table. The templates fold into boxes that the students then use alongside the in app camera to create different chemical reactions. The app also includes written and visual explanations when a chemical reaction occurs. 

This app could be useful in a lesson plan for a middle school or high school chemistry class. Elements 4D provides a way to explore the trends in the periodic table, identify the different types of chemical bonds, and allows students to test those reactions themselves. It could be a useful tool when paired with teacher instruction. 

My Bitmoji Classroom

My desired subject and age group to teach is 7th grade algebra or geometry, and I designed my bitmoji classroom with this in mind.

I am also a huge fan of motivational posters and funny jokes, which will definitely make their way into my own classroom in real life one day as well! 

This was a very fun project! I may develop my design further in the future. 

Signing off for now, 

Ms. Harrison

Creating an Online Community of Learners

 

Heightened exposure to online courses in recent years has brought awareness to the education field about how difficult it is to create a community of learners in an online setting. In their e-text "Introduction to systematic instructional design for traditional, online, and blended environments, first edition" M. D. Roblyer (2014) discusses different techniques that can be used to create online learning communities, including instructor guidance, discussion boards, and different means of student collaboration. Instructor guidance is the most crucial part of a learning community. Without an instructor to guide discussion or collaboration, students would have a difficult time coming together as learners. It is the instructors job to create a learning environment that is receptive to their students and creates opportunities for collaboration (Roblyer, 2014, p.160-161). The instructor can do this through many means, announcement pages with instruction, the course syllabus, video lectures, and even through guided discussion on a forum. 

    Discussion forums are a way for an online community to communicate with one another. Also known as discussion boards in some cases, they are a way for students and instructors to have collaborative discussions about learning topics that are being taught in class. They can even be social, through introduction posts and opinion forums that could be posted throughout the course. Since having 25-30 students posting on one forum can be a lot to sift through, Roblyer suggests breaking these forums into small groups of 6-8 students at a time (2014, p 171-172). Having a place in an online course to discuss with other students is a great way to promote a community of inquiry and collaboration in online learning. 

Student collaboration can be difficult to implement into an online setting, but can be done in many meaningful ways that can help build a community. Roblyer suggests implementing interaction between students, as it has many social and educational benefits (2014, p.171). One example of collaboration can be through peer review. In peer review, two or more students are paired together to review each other's work, give feedback, and learn from one another. 

The method that appeals to me most has to be the discussion board. Hearing feedback about my ideas from my peers and instructors makes me feel heard and seen in an online community. Reading what my classmates think of a topic and comparing it to my own thoughts expands my worldview, and makes me want to research further into the topic. In a community of learning, it is important to have that type of collaborative discussion with your peers. Discussion boards can also become a more social aspect of the class, where you can share your current happenings with your community. Its flexibility to share personal and educational information makes it an important strategy to build connections in an online community. 

Work Cited

Roblyer, M. D. (2014). Chapter 8 Organizing Traditional, Online, and Blended Learning             Environments. In Introduction to Systematic Instructional Design for Traditional, Online, and Blended Environments, First Edition (pp. 160–178). story, Pearson+ Multi, PXE.