Learning online has been difficult for both educators and students. With the COVID-19 pandemic, however, we have no choice but to adapt to the new norm of online education.

The most difficult aspect of online education is to keep children engage and not losing their attention. To make the most of this, all schools and teachers would need to collaborate on online learning tools and resources.

Many schools and colleges are facing this challenge, but one stumbling block is that not every student or school have access to advanced technologies to keep their classes interesting for their students.

In this article, we will discuss a few strategies for increasing children’s engagement in online learning sessions.

Communicate with your students on a number of platforms.

This is a difficult time for students. On the one hand, students were accustomed to physical school and social interactions through a variety of extracurricular activities.

Students are now confined to their digital screens with little social interaction as a result of online education.This is why teachers must maintain open lines of communication.

Always have discussion boards and emails ready for a course outline, and make sure to keep communications flowing through various formats such as audios, videos, chat rooms, broadcast text messaging, and so on.

Create an online course structure that includes active learning opportunities.

A lot of online learning refers to a course structure that is designed in such a way that students must sit in front of their computers and take a lesson.

However, if your course instructor has made your lessons interactive and engaging, it may become more interesting for your students to retain information.

To give you a few examples, the learning lesson may require you to play with the cursor, or you may assign your students brainstorming sessions, interview sessions with neighbours, or some research assignment that requires your students to interact with the community.

Case studies, group projects, and research cases are just a few examples of interactive learning.

Encourage students to engage in social learning.

Students learn more quickly when they participate in social activities. One disadvantage of online learning is that teachers must make an extra effort to promote social learning.

Use social media platforms to promote social learning, and display the Twitter badge on your home page, for example.

You can also use hashtags and the learning classroom to make your students feel like they are a part of the class.

Even Facebook has introduced new features such as private chat rooms and so on.

Maintain student motivation by providing feedback.

Students who learn online may experience feelings of invisibility at times. Many students may believe that the teacher doesn’t even know if we have our microphones on or off during class, so why should they care?

In this case, teachers must go above and beyond to show and tell students that they care and that they are listening. So, use emails and chats to provide students with feedback on their assignments, etc.

Always give your students feedback so they can stay motivated to do better and feel like they are being heard. If a student believes that the teachers have no idea what you are up to, they will not put forth any effort in class. The same can be said for physical classes.

Provide students with opportunities for self-assessment.

When students can self-assess, they produce positive results. Allow students to take ownership of their learning.

Many teachers allow students to grade each other, and they can also grade themselves.

Improve course accessibility for all students.

Many students may not have constant access to the internet or a laptop. So, what now? This is why all teachers and schools must work hard to make course materials available off-line so that all students can access them.

This is something that schools, teachers, parents, and students must all work together to solve.

Teach your teachers about online learning.

Teachers are accustomed to traditional learning methods; therefore, in order to ensure that your teachers are better prepared with online resources, you must train all of your faculty in these online teaching methods.

Many teachers are not particularly tech-savvy, so this new adjustment will necessitate some training.

Religious education was provided to students online even before the covid-19 was released into the world.

Online drawing classes for kids, graphic design classes, online corporate training, and so on.

Discover what motivates your students.

The good news is that, just like in any face-to-face classroom, the real key to engaging your online students is to discover what motivates them and gives them a reason to participate in the classroom.

Use the same mediums you would in a real-life classroom when teaching English online or if you are a classroom teacher who has gone virtual.

Play music to amplify up the fun, or just go wild with the drawing tool!

Don’t be afraid to experiment with your students until you find what works for them.

Make the lesson more digestible by breaking it down

Timing is critical in online teaching, and you may find that you need to divide your online lessons differently than you would face-to-face ones.

As a general rule, keep a quick pace and break down information into small, easily digestible chunks.

In practise, this means avoiding lengthy explanations and slides with excessive text!

Changing the tempo of your lessons by incorporating a variety of activity types is another excellent way to make the time fly by for your students.

Conclusion:

Online learning saves students time by eliminating the need for them to commute; however, due to a lack of social interactions and physical activities, online classes tend to reduce student engagement, making it difficult for them to pay attention in class.

This is why all of the above tips and tricks will help your students stay interested in their lessons and engaged in their classes.

Technology is constantly evolving and developing new and advanced methods to assist teachers in being more efficient with education tips and techniques.

Online learning may be around until at least 2021, so we’d better get used to it and accept it as the norm.