10 Ways to Connect and Engage with Students

10 Ways to Connect and Engage with Students 

All of us miss classroom interaction with our students. The smiles, the laughter, and the engaging back-and-forth between students. The connections. In our current learning environment, the social-emotional connections will never match those when we're in person. Instead, we must find ways to connect academically and through our content. In talking with students, families, teachers and through my own observations, here are 10 ways to connect and engage with our students academically. 
  1. Be Prepared. We're all nailing this one. Careful planning provides clarity and maximizes time on task and the accompanying daily agenda prepares and sets the stage for student learning. 
  2. Being enthusiastic, passionate and professional. I've shared with many of you that I don't like having my camera on, but when I was participating in conference a couple of week's ago, I found myself much more comfortable when I was standing and talking. While it required some tweaking to my tech setup, I found myself being more enthusiastic, passionate and probably easier to listen to. In observing classes, I have found myself more engaged (even when I know nothing about the subject) when the teacher is smiling, warm, and using voice inflection. I think I would benefit from some drama lessons from Ms. Pitts. 
  3. Creating your own videos While using premade videos from Nearpod, Khan Academy, or YouTube is viable and often necessary, creating your own videos lends to your credibility and shows students that you're invested. One student told me, "my teacher's videos aren't great, but I like hearing [the teacher's] voice." The student didn't know it, but the research backs her statement up--videos need not be professionally developed to be effective. 
  4. Make the classroom materials yours. Similar to the above, positive emotions seem to be triggered when students see your handwriting because it makes things more personal for the students. So whether it's the math or science teacher  writing out the answer as they walk students through a problem, an English teachers sharing annotations, or a social studies teacher using her handwritten answer keys, students seem to appreciate the handwritten notes. This seems to be because sharing our handwriting "normalizes" online learning although I can hear students saying, "I can't read cursive."  
  5. Ensuring students feel safe I had a student in my sophomore seminar share that she actually likes online learning more because she feels safer. Another student's mother echoed that sentiment. Both shared that online learning has made it possible for them to be meet 1:1 with teachers or communicate with teachers without others knowing about it. Both lamented that in the traditional classroom, shyness, embarrassment and peer influences all made it emotionally difficult for the student to participate. 
  6. Different ways of providing feedback. Several teachers are using asynchronous time to meet with students 1:1 or in small groups to provide specific, targeted and individualized feedback. I also heard of a teacher asking students, "How would you like to receive your feedback?" 
  7. Online Formative Assessments/Checks for Understanding. Assessing the needs of the students in the traditional classroom is significantly easier. We can check-in with students, read their facial expressions, and look over their shoulders when we're in the traditional class. When online we must rely on other ways to check for understanding. Using Nearpod's integrated questioning systems, polling, and Zoom chat are powerful strategies. 
  8. Acknowledge and Respond. We're not the only ones struggling with online learning, While there are some students who prefer online learning, they are few and far between. We need to make it a point to reassure and reaffirm to our students that we see the whole child by acknowledging their struggles and their efforts. Similarly, when students are not meeting our expectations, we need to check-in with them on a personal level. 
  9. Celebrating students. Finding ways to celebrate our students' birthdays, personal traits, and accomplishments creates connections. In a couple of observations I saw teachers highlighting excellent student work and student passions. "I want to show you how Andrew tackled this problem. This isn't how I taught you but you'll see it works..." Another teacher emphasized a student's passion, "You know there's a student in this class who is really passionate about this...Does anyone have a guess at who it is? A couple of students make guesses with some right. I'm going to let him tell you a little more about this.
  10. Find ways to get students off their computers. On of the most common compliments I've heard from students and parents has highlighted how appreciative they are of teachers that have provided packets, textbooks, novels, and other paper copies. 
The most powerful way to connect with our students during online learning is to providing the best instruction we can. This is how we show our expertise, competency and credibility. 

Ensuring Ethical Student Behaviors 

I wanted to share with you an old blog post on encouraging ethical behaviors. I'm a firm believer that as teachers, we can instill in our students a sense of personal responsibility, of ethos. Here are 3 ways to help accomplish this:
  1. Avoid loss-framed statements, such as "If you cheat, you will get a zero." Research shows that these statements may temporarily prevent cheating but do little in the long-run. Instead, frame your statements in a positive manner. 
  2. Teach character by reminding students that even minor cheating infractions speak to their character and trustworthiness. 
  3. Reinforce positive behaviors such as being honest and have students reflect on their own principles and values. 
So before giving an assessment where the opportunity to cheat presents itself try, "We've worked hard to build trust this year. I'm proud of the trust we've built. I know you won't let me down." Then when you hand out the assignment, require students to look you in the eye and pledge affirmation with a statement like "I will not cheat," or "I won't let you down." Obviously, with online learning this isn't possible. 

As a final step, when students turn the assignment in have them either write on the assignment or have them say, "I fulfilled my promise. I didn't cheat," or a similar statement. When they do this, thank them for their work and honesty. 

The most effective anti-cheating policy is not punitive but rather is to remind students of who they are and how they want to be seen and who they want to be. 

Tasks/Important Information 

Reminder: Parent-teacher conference sign-up links will be going out on Monday. November 2 will be an asynchronous day. In addition to independent learning, we've heard of teachers using this day for make-up work and unit assessments. Great ideas! 

Digital Citizenship Week

  • Check out these resources for you and your students!
  • You are likely well on your way to becoming certified (getting a fancy badge and PD points). If you would like more information about getting certified but can’t make the meeting please let me know and we can chat another time.
  • We are also hosting 2 family webinars around Digital Citizenship in November. I will get you more specifics on dates, topics, and times for those soon
  • Please join LTI’s, and other educators for an information session (informal!) on becoming Common Sense Certified. PD points available! Register HERE for the Zoom link
  • Email Alfred with questions.

 Many of you have already done most of the work! I PROMISE!

  • Teach DIGCIT Lessons to students ✅
  • Attend a PD Session (BBES staff if you attended the TECH Day and attended my DIGCIT PD, you’ve done this!) ✅
  • 2 Family Engagement events/communication (Our division has provided a “Family Field Guide” and we will be hosting 2 DigCit events for families in November) ✅
  • APPLY! ✅

https://bit.ly/WAHSannounce To request an announcement, calendar event, etc. 

https://bit.ly/TWCStuRec Together We Care Student Recognition

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We cannot be perfect, great, or even above average

Image
We cannot be perfect, great, or even above average As an administrator during these times, I struggle to find the balance between being positive and overdoing it to the point of being positively toxic. In an  article about toxic positivity, psychiatrist Gayani DeSilva described toxic positivity "as insincere positivity that leads to harm, needless suffering or misunderstanding." Personally, I know since March there was a month or two where I slammed the door on negative emotions, ignoring how I really felt. But I also wonder, "As an education leader, have I spread toxic positivity?" During my fifth and sixth years of teaching, the teaching environment was awful.  Our principal was like a ping pong ball, caught in an acrimonious and untenable relationship between district administrators and teachers. On multiple occasions he told us, "be glad you have a job."  He meant well. He encouraged us to work hard but to also take time for themselves. Unfortunately, ...
Read more
What We’ve Learned and Need to Keep We have had to reimagine every facet of teaching and learning this year. It has changed school and teaching as we know it. The pandemic called further attention to the glaring inequities of race, disability and income. Facing countless new challenges, we as educators, have persevered--so too have students and families. As we conclude the academic year, it’s important for us to think about how schooling can evolve. We have become experts in Schoology and other technologies, masters of Zoom, and we’ve connected with students, families, and peers in new ways. None of this was easy. Far from it. The learning curve was steep. Workloads doubled or tripled; matched with an equal increase in stress. The pandemic has affected every aspect of schooling and spotlighted the changes that should continue.   Collaboration between between administrators and educator s Over the summer Mr. Lee created committees to address the challenges of the pandemic. Th...
Read more

Questioning the Author

Questioning the Author Questioning the Author (QtA) was developed by Beck and her associates in 1997 and is a means of engaging students in reading text. It is a comprehension strategy that helps students become critical thinkers who question what is written and the author’s motive.  Using this strategy will help your students read with a critical eye, think for themselves and learn to examine what is advertised and explore the information to create deeper meaning.   Here are the steps: Decide what text you want the students to read. Identify what you want students to learn. What are the major concepts, or ideas, or areas of knowledge you want students to learn? Identify areas in the text where students might have difficulty understanding vocabulary or meaning. These become your stop points. At each stop point, develop higher-order questions to help students find meaning and think critically. Ask questions such as: What do you think the author is saying? Do you think the autho...
Read more