Engagement & Strategies

Do a social / emotional check-in. Begin your class meeting with a quick social emotional check-in to see how students are doing. When the quarantine began, I used the following prompt. Students then shared their band names in the chat feature. Another time, I asked them to sketch a “high/low” for the week and with a quick description. Students then shared their pictures in small groups.
Incorporate movement. I know of a third grade teacher that does a daily dance to start their virtual conferences. This not only gets the blood flowing but it also creates a shared experience. Other teachers have a class phrase or mantra or a long-distance high five that they do. These increase participation and build community.
Use the Q&A feature. Many video conference platforms have both a chat feature and a Q&A feature. The Q&A feature is a great way to create a “parking lot” where students can ask a question at any time and you, as the instructor, can check it out when the time is right. If your video conferencing software doesn’t include the Q&A feature, simply add it to your LMS or create a Google Form.
Use polls. Some video conference platforms include a built-in poll. If that doesn’t work, you can use an online poll and link to it. Polls provide instant feedback and can help with reviewing information, gathering opinions, or doing a low-stakes ice-breaker. For what it’s worth, I’m an introvert, so I don’t enjoy breaking the ice. I’d rather it melt slowly over days or weeks.
Allow students to show off their pets. This is a small way to affirm each student’s identity and give them a sense of agency in their learning. If they don’t have a pet, they can share a stuffed animal (preferably a “stuffy” and not a taxidermy animal) or a house plant. I did this with a recent class and a college student held out a cactus that he had named Spike.
Use the chat function. It can be hard to navigate a large in-person discussion. However, the chat function can allow students to share their thoughts in real-time. They can also send private chats to other classmates for a pair-share or a quick discussion.
Make use of hand-gestures. Find specific hand gestures to get students moving. You might do a “four corners” activity on the screen rather than the room. Here, students place their hand by the corner they agree with and you can provide a slide to mirror the screen. You might also use a Total Physical Response (TPR) for content vocabulary. This can help solidify the knowledge by building an association between a word, a definition, and a movement.
Incorporate silence. Video conferences can still have moments for think time or for quick-writes or sketches. Simply add a timer and mute all participants to create the silence necessary for students to process the information. This benefits introverts who need personal think time to make sense out of ideas. It can also help students who are learning English to process the language at their own pace.
Integrate other platforms into the virtual meeting. A virtual meeting does not have to be locked into the specific video conference platform. You can have students attend via video conference but then edit a Google Document or co-create an infographic or interact with sticky note platforms like Padlet.
Use breakout rooms strategically. Many video conferences offer breakout rooms for small group discussions. As the instructor, you can set these groups up ahead of time or put them together in the moment. You might be worried about students being social in these small groups. What if they talk about football or Minecraft instead of adaptations or chromosomes? But, honestly, during a time of quarantine, maybe being social isn’t such a bad thing. If you create a safe space where students connect, that’s a win.
Use hands-on learning to take it off-screen. You might do a maker project or a scavenger hunt. Or you might have students create sketchnotes. But the idea is to have students engage in a video conference but then go off-screen and return to share what they have found, learned, or created.