The How of Online Learning

It is important to create online lessons that fully engage the learner. Many people think that online learning consists of students reading an article or watching a video, and then regurgitating the information they learned in an essay or simple discussion post. Actually, effective online learning is much more complex than this. It is important to create learning opportunities that allow students to collaborate with their classmates, pose questions to research, and have time to interact and engage with the teacher. It is important for teachers to send video recordings of themselves giving announcements and instructions to help ease isolation and stimulate face to face instruction.

After integrating student involvement in online learning and with the instructor, the next phase is to increase collaboration between peers. Online collaboration can seem challenging, but through the use of simple strategies, collaboration can be seamless and effective.

First, decide what type of collaboration you want your students to participate in. Are they participating in a whole group discussion to build on prior knowledge before reading an article, or are they working collaboratively in a group to create a slide presentation or infographic about a topic they are reading about? Once you have decided on the type of collaboration, you can then create a clear participation structure. Think of how you structure collaboration in your class. It will be very similar expectations, except students will be in their homes using a digital platform to connect them.

Next, stick to using only one or two communication platforms so students and parents are comfortable with the tool. Many students and teachers are familiar with Google Classroom, which is a great tool for posting whole group classroom conversation questions. Students can also turn in collaboration projects through this platform. For younger students, you might want to integrate Flipgrid to allow students to share their ideas verbally.

Furthermore, you want to have clear communication of expectations. Building digital citizenship, and what online communication looks like will be the first and most important thing you do when you start online instruction. Make sure to outline what are appropriate discussion items, and how to add to or question someone's thinking. Here is a great resource for online collaborative conversation expectations and here is an online discussion sentence frame resource. A great strategy would be to hold a live Google Hangout Meet and have the class come up with communication expectations and procedures.

Lastly, students can use different technology tools to further collaborate. Flipgrid, Seesaw, and Padlet are also great collaboration tools that promote student interaction. Remember, creating a learning environment where students can talk, collaborate and learn from each other is so much more engaging that assigning a task for students to complete, turn in and then simply receive a grade from their teacher.

Once distance learning starts, it is important to create a clear consistent structure so that students can anticipate how to complete an assignment. For example, you might want to always use Google Classroom to post lessons with due dates, or create a Google Site with unit tabs where each unit is set up the same. To find more examples of lesson structures please refer to the lesson templates and sample lesson tabs at the top of this site.

It is extremely important to continue to create formative assessments when providing distance learning. Checking for understanding and providing feedback is just as imperative to online learning as it is with face to face learning. Teachers can also create structures where students give and receive feedback from their peers. Two great strategies to use when offering feedback to formative assessments is to screencast yourself giving feedback or offer small group video chat feedback. Please refer to the Hosting Online Chats and the Screencasting tab at the top of this site for more information.