Are You Getting the Most Out of Your Online Class: 6 High Impact Practices for Engaging Students

What a great opportunity it is for all of us to rethink and redesign our classrooms. This year has been challenging for all of us teachers, students, and district leaders alike. As a teacher I want to be there for my students because in many cases; I am all they have. They need me just as much as I need them so I told myself that I would do whatever it takes to get better with a group of educators. This is why I decided to host a workshop. I am hosting a workshop to connect with other people in the field of learning and growing. I did not want to assume everyone had the training of online teaching and learning that I have had through Indiana University. I wanted to share the best practices and tips that I use to this day to connect with my students before they enter the class zoom.

I know that chunking content helps my students so I have broken the 2-hour workshop into 6 pieces with several practices that I use daily. I hope that we can discuss some of these strategies and create new ones as well. I know that you will have some things that work well in your classroom so together we will create a massive cheat sheet of ideas that will help build upon each other and together we will thrive.

Therefore, we know that the most important factor in improving student achievement in the classroom are teachers, but due to the pandemic, we have had to transform our classrooms quickly. Our technology at our school sites could not keep up with our dynamic teaching styles thus causing many of us to either go online 100% or teach in hybrid models. Also, we have gone paperless in many schools thrusting in-person classes to look like zoom rooms. A change must come! To create classes that are engaging teachers have to think differently about online learning. Ideas, like pre-calling students and parents, having students present on their areas of expertise, and having students capture their data and record it over time are just a few ideas that we use.

This workshop will help K12 teachers who struggle with low student engagement and provide them with effective strategies they can implement in their classroom today! If you are interested in tips and tricks for truly connecting with students while collaborating online, this workshop is for you! Take a look at the areas below so we can start on this journey together and stay connected throughout the year! Come and join us for this wonderful event! Below is an overview of the two-hour event.

1. Building a new community: This is a great opportunity to really engage families and reach out to each parent prior to class to make sure you have an advocate in their home!

2. Online community and engagement: This area focuses on how teachers can really get their students excited about showing up and tips to take your class from no engagement to students excited to show up and particulate.

3. Online structure of the lesson: This is the area where we focus on various structures that help move a class from the beginning to the end.

4. Incentives and Motivation: In this part, we review incentives that are used to keep students motivated week after week.

5. Direct and Indirect Student Support: This stage is key, differentiation of instruction with online learning is making sure everyone gets what they need in this new online environment.

6. Measures of Success: This last indicator is crucial to the success of any classroom, how do you know that what you are doing is working. We will discuss ways to measure success and what we know works.