Getting your students involved and talking online
In the hundreds of coaching conversations I’ve been in, with educators from different levels (7-12 and High Ed) and all types of disciplines, we ultimately touch on the subject of student engagement online. I often hear things like ‘students are really quiet during class…’ or ‘…they don’t really want to engage…’. These are all common problems that every teacher in the online environment will face at some point in time.
Often, we assume that students will just do. Or maybe rather, do what’s being asked of them. But as anyone that’s stepped into a classroom will know, students have agency, they have thoughts and opinions, and they will do whatever they want to do.
Is it realistic to expect someone to be chatty when they haven’t spoken in the last 20 minutes…
This leads to the question of whether we have really set up the environment for interaction. Is it realistic to expect someone to be chatty when they haven’t spoken in the last 20 minutes because we’ve been explaining a concept in a very teacher-centric way? Or is it realistic to expect a social learning environment if we haven’t created the pre-conditions for it? As in, do students feel safe, have a sense of belonging, and incentives to participate (what’s in it for me?). Have we done anything to connect students with one another?
And of course, there is the added challenge of being online 💻🌐.
We are competing with technology companies for attention. There is a high probability that your students are multitasking, surfing social media and other sites while we are trying to facilitate a productive classroom environment. Let’s face it, we’ll likely lose every time we face off against tech giants unless we create the space that allows students to get more value from being there. These hurdles are tough, I empathise as a practitioner, but it requires different strategies from us in the online space.
IT’S ALL ABOUT COMMUNITY
First things first, it’s all about community. We can’t assume this will naturally emerge, sometimes it will but often it won’t. If you look at this in the face to face context, you’ll notice that there is a gravity that pulls people together, whether they like it or not. Groups form, conversations happen, organically 💬. This is the biggest draw of being in the physical environment, the ease by which these communities form and emerge.
Sorry to be the one to tell you this, but it’s much harder online unless we enable it. Well… maybe not harder, just different.
That’s not to say that it won’t happen, it just needs extra thought and attention to make it happen. How often have you explicitly told your class that they should connect and network with one another? Or better yet, set up a space online to connect all students in the class and transfer that ownership over to a group of students?
We as practitioners in this environment need to set this up, intentionally. There are no replacements for the gravitational pull of other humans in the physical space, but there are alternatives.
Our brains crave it 🧠. We can tap into that urge and use this to our advantage online.
The question really becomes, are you ready to build it?
The (not exhaustive but a place to start) Hows:
Classroom cultures, like organisational cultures, need planning 📅, strategy 📚, and action 🏃♂️. It can be difficult to accept the concept of building a community in the classroom environment because it can often feel non-tangible. But communities lead to better interactions. Community members are more confident in their risk taking, are more willing to engage with their peers, and can accelerate the learning of everyone involved (think Communities of Practice, think social learning, think Socratic methods).
If you want to get more engagement, more students talking to each other, and a more vibrant environment, keep reading 👇.
Spend time investing in social things
Connecting students means taking the time to do so ⌚. How often have you used the tagging functions on Teams or Slack to help your students network? How often have you created private groups with students who share the same interests? Have you ever considered spending the first webinar totally on social connection? Devoting the time and effort to connect your students is a worthwhile investment if you want students to engage with you and others online.
Think about it this way. Connections in the physical space happen organically, through the nature of sharing a physical space. You can be in a class, share a table with a group, and have conversations that bind you together. In the online context, we need to create the time and space to make this happen. There is no way around it. Often we just jump straight into the content like we would in the physical space. The difference is the online space has little avenues for natural connection.
I can already hear the resistances, I’ve heard it before. Things like ‘I just don’t have time…’ or ‘The curriculum is too packed; I can’t waste it doing icebreakers…’.
But trust me, it’s not a waste.
The online environment requires that additional time to build social connection. There is no other replacement to this, we must build the structures and processes to make this happen. It’s unreasonable to expect people to participate in your online subject with others who are essentially avatars 👤 and strangers to them. Breaking down this wall through investing the time to do so makes it easier for students to participate.
Tending to your community
Now that you’ve set the stage for interaction and have normalised this in your classroom, it’s time to keep it going. Like a houseplant, your classroom needs attention and watering. Not too much, as to smother it, and not too little as to neglect it.
You might be wondering, why not too much? More is better, right? 🤷
Communities need some time to self-assemble and create pockets of shared leadership. If we as instructors are always the first to respond, or the first to lead it doesn’t provide enough space for students to take on more ownership.
…what actions we need to take and when should we be silent and allow for others to step in
There is a counter-intuitive thing that happens when we are the first to respond and not allowing others to step into the space. It creates an environment that makes you the central figure (which feels great, but sharing the stage is a key teaching skill). This is not to say, ‘neglect your student questions because they should own it’. It’s to think about what actions we need to take and when should we be silent and allow for others to step in. Master teachers are those that can play with silence and knowing when it’s better for other students to step in. Silence makes it intentionally awkward, and it becomes human nature to want to fill it. Resisting this urge and allowing students to step into that space can be a powerful tool for engagement. You can even get this moving by tagging students in the discussion thread, making it likely that they’ll be notified and answer the query. Build your students up to lead the space.
Additionally, when creating learning activities have interaction in mind. This is especially true during your live sessions. Get your students active early and often. Remember that the longer someone sits without action, the harder it is to start participating. Get them to flex that muscle 💪.
Lastly, always be on the lookout to connect your students. Communities and networks form from introductions. Find any reason to link your students together, introduce them, link them to past students and industry professionals. This is the power you have as the conductor of this orchestra. As students interact, and as you break down the blockers for this interaction, it helps loosen the tension that happens when you are in a new environment. It’s hard to expect students to engage in a meaningful way with what feels like a bunch of strangers.
Reflect, experiment, and adapt
Now that you’ve seen some strategies play out in the online environment it’s time to cull and plan new experiments. Distance and online education has a long history but we are still in the early stages of developing what best practice looks like in the online space. Now that we’ve all been forced in fully or partially online classrooms it’s a great time for anyone who wants to make a mark in this space to do so.
It’s natural to be in a foreign learning environment and hold on to old comforts. But this environment thrives on experimentation and learning.
Keep inventing 🔬⚗️👩🔬.
Bill Simmalavong