Considering how unfamiliar the at-home digital classroom might be for many teachers, it is essential that I follow my previous digital classroom management article (tips for parents), with some tips for teachers. As a teacher I am very aware of the challenge of engagement and discipline in a virtual classroom. As a parent I am similarly aware of the difficulties of motivating good behaviour and focus.
In this article I hope to set out some helpful general tips for teachers trying to manage children learning at home. Every child is unique and these tips will not address specifics and particulars, but may help to smooth an unfamiliar and sometimes turbulent experience.
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Online Classes – Teacher’s Perspective
I said it before in the Tips for Parents article, but this point is so fundamental that it bears repeating: both parents and teachers must become collaborators if this state of affairs has any hope of success. We may try our best to adapt our training, experience and technologies to the at-home education environment, but we mustn’t neglect one of the most powerful new tools that the situation provides us: the parent(s).
With kids learning online from home, aspects of the educational experience which were typically handled by teachers in the classroom are now the purview of parents. Environment, engagement, motivation, behaviour, scheduling and discipline are now in mom and dad’s lap. We (teachers) have much less reach, but we are far from helpless or insignificant.
Four Tips to Manage Online Learners
1. Continue your role as role-model
In the classroom, students took their behaviour cues from you. You dressed for school, you showed them how to listen and speak with respect, you extended patience and empathy, you modelled self-discipline and perseverance. There is no reason at all why this shouldn’t continue.
You can enforce prompt class start and finish times in the digital classroom. You can show them that you still dress appropriately (at least from the waist up). Attention, taking turns, listening, speaking clearly and participation should be encouraged as before. Additionally, if you share your screen with them you can model what an organized, dedicated workspace looks like, and what tools you use to accomplish your learning and teaching goals.
2. Let the kids see and hear each other
Kids learning remotely simply do not have the same exposure to their peers as classroom-taught children. If you’re not attentive, the technology can easily exacerbate the isolation. You can’t do anything about the physical distancing of online learners, but you can certainly increase the amount of opportunity to see and hear each other, to share and help, to discuss and interact. With some adjustment, it is possible to build a digital classroom community.
3. Elucidate. Facilitate. Shut up.
As educators, we know that we are most effective when we guide rather than lecture. This is never more important than in the digital classroom. With all the available and ever-present distractions in the home environment, we must always be wary of talking too much and allowing the learner’s attention to drift. Prioritize activities, group-learning, demonstrations and interactions.
4. Be available for 1-on-1
I’ve already spoken of encouraging peer-to-peer interactions. Similarly, we should recognize the need and benefit of 1-to-1 or 1-to-few sessions, both with our students and with their parents. Not only does this enhance the sense of connection and community, but it will also quickly identify learning issues.
Don’t forget that at home, mom and dad are your co-educators. You lead the class and guide the lessons and set the homework, but don’t be shy to enlist the parents support in scheduling homework time, supervising lessons and providing their own knowledge and expertise when your day is done.
Managing a classroom is one of the most difficult tasks many teachers face and is a task for which few parents are trained. However, with some collaboration and adjustment to our methods we can make this less-than-ideal situation much smoother.
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