Learning online has been a challenge for educators, as well as learners. However, with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have no solution other than to adjust to the new norm of online education.

The biggest challenge of online education has been to keep the kids engaged and for them to not lose their attention as well. For this, all the schools and teachers would need to collaborate on online learning tools and resources to make the best of it.

A lot of schools, colleges, and online Quran classes for kids had to face this challenge, but one thing that came in the way was not every student or school had access to advanced technologies to keep their classes interesting for their students.

In this article, we will outline a few ways with which you can increase kids’ engagement in their online learning sessions.

Tips to increase kids’ engagement in online learning

1. Communicate with your students on multiple platforms

This is a tough time for students. On one hand, students were used to physical school and social interactions with a combination of various extracurricular activities. While now, with online education students are stuck on their digital screens with minimum social interaction.

This is why teachers need to make sure to keep the communication ongoing. Always have discussion boards and emails ready for a course outline, also make sure to keep communications ongoing through different formats including audios, videos, chat rooms, broadcast text messaging, etc.

2. Make the online course structure with active learning opportunities

A lot of online learning refers to a course structure designed in a way that requires students to sit in front of their screens and take a lesson. However, this is not compulsory, if your course instructor has made your lessons interactive and engaging then it might become a bit interesting for your students to retain information.

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

Case studies, group projects, or research cases are only a few examples of interactive learning opportunities.

3. Encourage students for social learning

Students learn quicker through social activities. And one drawback of online learning is, that the teachers have to make an extra effort for social learning.

Use social media platforms to encourage social learning and use the Twitter badge on your home page etc. You also use hashtags and learning classroom to encourage your students to feel like they are a part of the classroom. Even Facebook has now come up with features like private chat rooms etc.

4. Use gamification elements

Gamification is an online learning tool that is trending. If you have the resources you should combine your learning lessons with a few digital tools and techniques.

Gamification is a gaming element use to encourage learning. While a few teachers can achieve this and design an entire game for their students, on the other hand, you can also use a few gaming elements for certain course outlines to encourage students to earn gamification badges on completion of a certain course or assignment, etc.

In short, adding badges to your courses can help students feel a sense of achievement and therefore motivate them towards success.

5. Keep students motivated and provide them with feedback

Online learning sometimes means that students might feel invisible. A lot of students might think, the teacher doesn’t even know if we have our mics on during a class or not, so who cares?

So, in this case, teachers need to go the extra mile to show and tell students they care and that they are listening. So make use of emails and chats to give students feedback on their assignments etc.

Always, make sure that you provide your students with feedback so they stay motivated to do better and feel like they are heard. If a student feels, that the teachers have no idea what you are up to, they won’t make any effort in the class. The same goes for physical classes.

6. Allow students self-assessment opportunities

Students provide positive results when they can self-assess themselves. Allow students to take responsibility for their learning.

A lot of teachers allow students to grade each other or you can also allow them to grade themselves.

7. Improve course accessibility for all

A lot of students might not have access to the internet or a laptop all the time. What then?  This is why all teachers and schools must strive to make the contents of the course available off-line so it is accessible to all the students.

This is something that the schools, teachers, parents, and students together have to figure out.

8. Train your teachers in online learning

Teachers are used to traditional learning methods, which is why to make sure that your teachers are better prepared with the online resources, you must train all your faculty with these online methods of teaching.

A lot of teachers are not that tech-friendly and therefore will require a bit of training in this new adjustment. Even before the covid hit the world, religious education was given to students online. For example, online Quran classes for kids, or graphic designing classes, online corporate training, etc.

Conclusion

Online learning is time-efficient in terms of saving students of commute time, however, due to lack of social interactions and physical activities, online classes tend to reduce student engagement and therefore they struggle to pay attention to class.

This is why all the tips and tricks mentioned above will help your students stay interested in their lessons and keep them engaged with their classes. Technology is constantly evolving and coming up with a new and advanced way that can help teachers be more efficient with education tips and techniques.

Online learning might be here for at least 2021 as well, so we better adjust and just accepts the norm.