How do we continue to engage students in online learning environments?
How do we motivate and engage students with teachers, content, and their peers in online courses?
This has been the question on a lot of new and veteran virtual school leaders’ minds. Although it’s not new, the issue has taken on new relevance because of the recent post-pandemic growth of digital learning. We chose this as a topic for two recent discussions with our DLC members, and are using this post to share some of the findings.
Three common themes appeared in each discussion as keys to keeping students engaged in online learning environments:
relationships,
data, and
communications and support.
Relationships
Getting to know your learners is critical, and we heard over and over that engagement is all about relationships. Whether it is the relationship between the student and teacher, the student and another adult in the school (counselor, leader, paraprofessional, etc.) or cultivating peer to peer learning, building relationships and community is key. If relationships are built with each student, students will be more likely to engage with the content and school.
A common perception about online courses is that students are isolated—and that can be true of some schools and courses. But we also often hear from teachers saying, “I get to know my students better in online classes then I ever did in my in-person classrooms!” Students are likely to be more open with their online teacher, which can make it feel safer to share. Jamey Fitzpatrick of Michigan Virtual calls this dynamic intimate anonymity, and it has to be developed. Teachers and other professional adults may start with a simple email or text just asking how the student is doing today and then continuing to maintain that conversation throughout the week. These relationships are key and can go into places that are difficult to do in face-to-face environments as kids often don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of their peers.
In addition to texts, phone calls, and emails, video (live or recorded) helps to build relationships. Many online teachers create a welcome video to share about themselves (establishing a human connection and teacher presence) to kick off their course. To take it to the next level, some teachers have students create their own short video sharing their interests and challenges.
Online community spaces can also provide educators with additional insights into how their students are thinking and engaging with content and one another. Rather than just posting graded asynchronous discussions in the LMS, some teachers open a “water cooler” or allow students to start a new thread allowing them to build relationships with their peers. Many online schools have started virtual clubs that began with a simple discussion thread and led to in-person meet ups which create new relationships and keep students engaged both with content and as a member of the school community.
Data
In addition to relationships, data is key to engaging students. Digital learning environments provide educators access to real time data for each student. In the school’s LMS, teachers can analyze how students are engaging with lessons and if they see something out of the ordinary (a student has fallen behind, not understanding a concept, etc.) they will call student/parent (in addition to regular scheduled calls) to dig deeper and provide additional support. The LMS dashboards are becoming more powerful, and every day when a teacher logs in, she sees a scale of where students are to help her address individual student needs.
Indiana Online is implementing a new data structure for teachers. They have created new categories with a common language, to document student data in their SIS. This allows their student services team to pull student data based on the specific categories they have created, and then provide services for individual students. They can now dig deeper into what is going on in students’ lives, their interests, physical and mental health, and their academic progress. It has also helped them develop new strategies for building relationships with and engaging students in their learning. In this new system, teachers import their data into the SIS and the school leadership exports it to look at individual and groups of students to see patterns of behavior and communication and find gaps.
Communication and supports
Communication and supports are another way to ensure student engagement. Students who receive a welcome call from their teacher within the first week of the start of the course to talk about the course and their personalized learning plan for learning and completing the course, are more likely to be successful.
LINK Learning in Berrien Springs, Michigan puts a focus on message prep, practice, and outcomes. Message prep is written communications. These provide a checklist for educators to ensure that general conversations and messages are positive, relational, intentional, specific, and reflective. LINK Learning educators practice communication, working to see if they are being consistent with students in responses and ensuring they are reliable and balanced, also checking to make sure they are responding at times when students are available. Staff are provided ongoing professional development, and the school created a rubric with exemplars to help self-reflect as the school is trying to communicate with and support the staff as much as they do with students.
They also make sure to give universal supports to all students. Many programs shared that they have a student centric support team that reviews universal supports for each student. Think of it as a general education support plan rather than an IEP for special student populations. Leadership has to spend a lot of time training and supporting staff for these models to be implemented successfully. The staff and teams have the freedom to implement in the best way for their teams and individual students. In these models, everyone is responsible for every student, and most programs at minimum have one adult from the school reach out with weekly touch ins with each student. The teams are given time in their weekly PLC meetings to enter their communication and academic data, what he/she has done, and what the teacher has done with parents. If any issues need to be escalated with the school leadership, recommendations are then made for next steps.
Many schools also talked about supporting student’s interests with online advisory periods, online clubs, office hours, financial literacy, travel club, yoga, etc. and family events. The Low Country Education Consortium (LCEC) in South Carolina shared that their family participation has been much higher once they created online family nights where parents get online with their students. They have implemented talent shows, assemblies, etc. with these nights and have had 85% participation.
How do you envision what it looks like to engage students in online learning? We would love to hear any additional ideas in response to this email!
Thanks to our DLC members for the lively discussions this month and allowing us to share out!
