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Best practices in online teaching

Having trouble doing a voiceover so my audio is at the end and the slides come first, but it is all there! 

https://voicethread.com/myvoice/thread/22838375/141809933

Blog post 8

 There are many different ways you can respond to students in class, some ways are probably more appropriate than others and that is the route you take. Often times, you have to sort out the issue as to why the student is not listening and having a harder time adjusting. Responding to students in a rational and calm conversation is the best first approach so that you can figure out the reasoning and ask how you can help. Allow the student time to cool down if they are upset with something in the classroom setting, then approach the behavior. Sometimes, ignoring the issue could be best and allow the child to come back together and recollect themselves. 

I would support students if they are demonstrating a skills deficit by understanding which part of the assignment they are having a hard time completing. Often, we think the child is being lazy or showing lack of motivation but sometimes we have to dig deeper and understand the student does not have the skills to complete the assignment and figure out why. The best you can do is ask the child what you can do to help and add on additional motivation for engaging the appropriate behavior. 

I would support students if they are demonstrating a performance of deficit by first figuring out why they do not want to complete the assignments they are required to complete. In this state, you can still add motivation to the student. Also, encouraging the student that they have the ability to complete these assignments but feel less motivation to and explain what can happen if they do not complete assignments and how quickly they could do certain things and move on from it. 

Maximizing online student motivation

 1.    Hear and take feedback from the students. Allowing them to voice their opinion.

2.    Make “class” time valuable for students, allow opportunities for student discussion and interaction. Discussion boards may also help so the students can have peer communication.

3.    Provide opportunities for student choice. Giving students the choice of topics and some choice of due dates. On tests allow children to choose which essay question to answer.

4.    Provide easy access to resources. Always make sure we direct students towards materials that are free and easy to use.

5.    Reward students’ successes. Praising helps build self-esteem and self-confidence which will help students move on to the next task.

 

I used to never be able to focus and complete tasks when learning online, but once the pandemic happened and I had no choice, it became my favorite thing. I was able to learn slowly and somewhat at my own pace. As I use these strategies in an online setting for other students I will make sure to give a place for feedback on each assignment for students so they are not only receiving the feedback from us but the feedback also from their peers who are receiving the same assignment. Making time available for students to complete different tasks is HUGE, they will not feel so rushed and like there is a “due date” for certain assignments. Also, I will have a discussion board open so that is the designated spot for students to go and communicate with one another about an assignment. Providing easy access and options for test and quizzes doesn’t give students the ability to skip the test or question but the ability to choose which one they can answer to their full ability. Finally, I will find a way to reward and motivate students in an online setting as I know it can be difficult to navigate around online courses.  

Methods of evaluation (Blog post 6)

 

Near Pod pros and cons

 Nearpod

A Nearpod is a virtual learning tool designed to help educators make any lesson interactive weather in the classroom or virtual. A teacher can create interactive presentations that contain quizzes, polls, videos, collaborate boards and more. The benefits of a Nearpod are ensuring all students are on task and participating. You are also able to see the student’s individual work and the quiz feature gives immediate feedback for student understanding. You can create lessons, find standards-aligned content, review students work, teach three ways and upload power points, google slides, PDFs, videos, and YouTube videos. The limitations of the Nearpod may be the price for some, although it may be worth is some people may not want to spend the amount you have to pay. The pricing and limitations also go to how many students can join depending on what package you purchase. If you join for free this only allows 40 students to join per lesson. The highest number of students able to join is 250 with the premium package. So, this may not benefit you if you have larger classes such as lectures or college classes. The applications or Nearpod could be something as a simple presentation delivery to harder tasks. A teacher can use this to create lessons by adding in the presentation and the lesson the children are learning. This can also set homework and assign open-ended tasks just as the open ended questions feature that allows teachers to pose questions.

VR tools in the classroom

The classVR headset comes complete with everything teachers needs to improve student engagement and introduce virtual reality into the classroom. The classVR headset provides a safe and secure way for students to explore VR & AR in the classroom with the teacher keeping full control over each device. The classVR portal ensures teachers can confidently manage students and add value to lessons when using VR & AR lessons. Teachers are always in control and the real-time class views provides full visibility of what and where their students are exploring in the headsets. This can help the children be more engagement and feel like they are locked in and up close to the lessons. 

 This can be used in almost any subject and it introduces a whole new concept in educational technology. ClassVR is a groundbreaking new technology designed to help raise engagement and increase knowledge retention for students of all ages. Early education is all about learning through experience. This VR can also be helpful for education for languages. Learning languages is all about making connections. Using this VR, educators can immerse students in countries, cultures & contexts- encouraging interaction with languages and their peers. 

When a student is engaged in what they are learning and how they are learning, they seem to gather more information and feel connected. With the VR headset on during lessons, children will have no distraction and they will almost have to be locked in but it will be more of a fun lesson rather than sitting there watching the teachers speak. There is thousands of virtual reality resources available for any subject. Teachers can also upload their own content for lesson planning.  The classVR portal includes access to a huge library of pedagogically sound and engaging VR and AR content.