Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, educational institutions have to pay extra attention to remote learning whenever it’s time to prepare for the new semester. Most of the time, instructors come up with fully packed classes that involve offline activities that bore students who initially aimed for active learning. Institutions are unaware that rushed zoom classes are workable only for a short period. Studying online makes it easy for students to lose interest, feel out of place, and disengage. That’s why to bring back active class participation, introduce collaborative learning strategies right away. With the help of collaborative learning, students show enhanced academic performance and knowledge acquiring skills. Here, we’ve listed the top 6 online learning strategies for students to engage while at home:
Online Learning Strategies For Students
1. Jigsaw Technique
The jigsaw technique holds first place when reviewing the best learning strategies, whether online or offline. Students can effectively retain knowledge through the jigsaw technique — teaching others. For this purpose, assign a student a portion of the course material to teach to fellow peers.
The jigsaw technique works great when dealing with a group of around 5 to 7 students. Divide the lesson and assign each section to everyone. The student will be responsible for researching it. Upon completion, ask them to share their understanding with fellow group members in a private group meeting or discussion room.
2. Think-Pair-Share
The think-pair-share technique is an easy way to increase engagement in online classes. Students are paired up and work together to assess and synthesize a topic and then explain their results to the class.
To implement this technique, you first have to make pairs and then assign a topic for research. As an educator, you will hold a questioning round at the end of the class. It should be an open-ended question to bring thoughts and ideas. The students will discuss their answers in a group meeting or discussion room.
It is an interactive way of involving the class in activities and giving them a chance to express their views.
3. Brainwriting
In a traditional classroom discussion, only two things happen:
- The most outgoing/confident student reply
- Only common ideas are shared
Brainstorming rounds are an effective means to encourage students to discuss new ideas, questions, and concepts. Even the quietest students gain the confidence to participate when brainstorming in the class. The teacher introduces the topical before the lecture, so students brainstorm when free. Such classroom discussions provide great ways to jump off a point for discussion.
Brainwriting brings down barriers and gives opportunities to shy students to be creative and engage with the class. It also prevents anchoring, which means that students’ suggestions can’t affect the topic of discussion and its direction.
4. Daily discussion question
One of the simplest ways to enable students to interact with each other is to set up an online discussion board. Teachers upload questions daily or weekly to encourage participation and collaborative learning by discussing course material together.
To succeed in introducing collaborative learning strategies in remote learning, keep the questions interesting and thoughtful. Open-ended questions will help promote diverse thinking when additional material from other sources of information.
5. Peer review
Allowing students to review the work of their fellow peers helps significantly in helping them broaden their understanding and develop feedback skills.
To carry out a flawless lower review session, pair the students randomly without bias. Give students everything they need to give their ad excellent academic performance. You can guide them, give out assessments, and provide feedback to yield the best results.
Peer reviewing is beneficial for both parties, meaning the reviewer and the reviewers. The reviewer gets to learn a subject from another person’s understanding. In addition to this, it also helps improve writing skills along with understanding proficiency.
6. Break out group discussions
Not everyone is born confident and bold. In big classes, you find students who hesitate to speak up in front of hundreds of other students. Even the thought of presenting scares them. That’s why to solve this issue, divide your class into smaller sections so that every student participates well.
When implementing this strategy, you need to section the class into a group of 15 or fewer. In every group, one student would be a moderator, who controls their respective group and manages any problem that arises within the group. Anyone could be a moderator, like a teacher assistant or a volunteering student. Give every group discussion questions or a topic to study and raise questions similar to the course material.
Small-group discussion is an incredible way of handling large classes. It also allows students to ask for assistance when they struggle academically and mentally.