Every teacher tries their best to increase the participation of the students in the online classroom. This is important because a dull classroom with no involvement of the student makes no sense for healthy learning.
Teachers applied different tactics to make online learning fun by adding games or quizzes in between the class. This not only makes the students more lively but also enjoys learning new skills.
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The games could be based on the daily lessons learned or taught in class as this would help the children to retain whatever they have studied in the class. This will not only increase their mental ability to think but also make them curious and excited to participate further.
Though there are quite big challenges for both the teachers and the students while learning online, but now I know things are better. Now almost everybody is comfortable using the digital platform. However, digital platforms also have some problems in communication like the internet lagging and other such things but people now have learned to deal with it.
It takes a bit longer to make the student comfortable to express online than an offline mode of teaching, thus introducing things like educational fun makes them feel connected and occupied. Adding a gamification learning management system to the existing classroom will deliver things in a much easier way.
In this blog, I will try to highlight some amazing ways to easily add fun to the virtual classroom. The methods are as follows:
1. Quiz games
An instructor can host online quiz games of the lesson taught for the day. The concepts will be clear and the student also feels productive and energetic. As a teacher, you can share daily quizzes with your students. You can either set a deadline for the submission or ask for active participation in the ongoing virtual class. For motivating the students more you can also assign some rewards for the one who finishes first or performs the best in class. You can also ask the students to maintain the scoreboard and review it either weekly or monthly. This will give rise to healthy competition in the class making the students more interactive. There are several apps present on the internet from which you can take help with some interesting quizzes.
2. Organizing virtual exhibitions or art galleries.
This is one of the best ways to promote creativity in the student. Ask your students to contribute to the virtual exhibition by presenting some prototype that can be either from their course or something that they have discovered themselves. Or the best idea is that if you want to promote creativity along with the sense of teamwork in the students, then you can divide the students into small groups. Ask each group to present a model along with a little summary of it demonstrating its importance or usage. This initiative often helps those students also who are shy and are unable to express their talent and at the same time, they will also understand the importance of teamwork.
3. Going with the theme
This is also one of the ways trending to promote fun in the virtual class. Just like in the offline mode of teaching, the school organizes fancy dress competitions or a particular theme for a certain special occasion, similarly, you can ask your students to follow the theme for a particular day. The theme can be kept according to some of the characters that a student is currently studying or on any topic related to the course. It is great to see the entire class wearing the same color.
4. Organizing virtual field trips
You all must have enjoyed a field trip organized by the schools. But now because the classes are virtual this cannot take place. But I have a solution to this, you can organize a virtual field trip and invite all your students to attend virtually. This field trip is fully virtual with no need for any extra expenses or rides or anything. A video is shown to the students about any fixed place comprising all the details of that place. This trip can be an educational trip where the student not only gets to see the place but also learns about the new place. You can ask your students to be actively involved in it by letting them ask questions. It can be a fun-filled trip right away sitting at your place not even requiring any expenses.
5. Making the Lunch Clubs
We all know that sharing is caring, it is obvious that we cannot share our lunch virtually but at least a fun field conversation can take place during the break time. Ask your students to make small groups or clubs for a lunch break then for each day you can decide whom to attend break with. Assign different top each lunch club, in this, you can have a strong bond with each student and know them much better. This can be an amazing time to let your students share different things other than just school-related stuff. You can ask them to share about their family, pets, dislikes, likes, and other such things. Building a strong relationship is the most essential part of the virtual classroom.
6. A separate class for non-academic kinds of stuff
Each student possesses a different skill or talent other than just studying. This hidden talent of students is often determined by the teachers, at least for myself I can truly say that. After the study is done you can simply ask students to actively participate and present something of their choice. it could be anything like music, art, poem, dance, and many more. This will also motivate those students who are shy in presenting themselves in front of everyone. In the end, you can also give a surprise challenge to any of the student’s turn by turn. This activity can make their day more happening and fruitful. Hence it will definitely improve the participation rate of the students in the class on a happier note.
Conclusion
I know many of the students, as well as the teachers, miss their offline classroom but trust me you can easily make a fun-filled educational virtual classroom by following some simple steps.
Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels.
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