Online classes are so much easier than teaching on-campus courses because teachers don’t have to worry about parking or classroom space. But there are still some downsides: the lack of activities for online classes create a monotony of teaching from home, the lack of student engagement due to physical distance from each other, and the limited time you get with each student when compared to traditional classrooms where teachers have more opportunities for one-on-one time with their students during office hours or breaks between class meetings. In this article, we’ll review our top engaging activities for online classes to break the monotony.
Create a Quiz
If you want to break up the monotony of your online classes, consider creating a quiz. A quiz can be as simple or as complex as you’d like it to be. You could ask students for their favorite color, or you could give them an exam covering all of this semester’s material.
For quizzes to be effective tools for learning, they must be engaging and interactive. Quizzes are not just multiple-choice tests – they should also provide opportunities for students’ creativity and understanding through open-ended questions or by requiring them to write essays in response to prompts (such as “Describe how this course has helped improve your writing skills”). Asking learners to submit a PDF with their thoughts can help them improve their writing styles, and the way they argue points and ultimately help them in their cognitive development.
Host a Book Club
Consider hosting a book club when looking for ways to break the monotony of your online classes. Choose a book relevant to your class, invite students to read it, and participate in the discussion. It’s best to host this event on Google Hangouts or another video platform so that everyone can see each other as they discuss their thoughts about the reading material.
If possible, encourage students to participate in class discussions by commenting on each other’s posts!
In the case of an English literature class, you can use the Gutenberg Project to download old “out of copyright” books and upload them as a part of your Wise course to create a book club without having your students leave your Whitelabel app.
Organise small group discussions using breakout rooms
A breakout room is a virtual space where students can meet and collaborate. Breakout rooms are a great way to engage students in an online class, as they allow for collaboration and discussion. They can also be used as part of your lecture schedule, allowing you to break up the monotony of teaching with some lively discussions. Zoom provides a good option for small discussions using these Breakout Rooms and can help create mini-learning spaces where learners can collaborate.
If you’re looking for ways to get more out of your breakout rooms, here are some suggestions:
- Encourage students working on group projects or assignments to use breakouts as a resource for collaborating on ideas, brainstorming solutions, and sharing progress reports. This will help them stay motivated throughout their project rather than getting bored halfway through because they’ve run out of things to do (which happens all too often).
- Ask questions that require short answers instead of essays or long answers because these types will encourage quick responses from everyone involved instead of having just one person answering all the other questions while everyone else waits patiently until it’s their turn again!
Include experiential learning activities for online classes
Experiential learning brings joy and real-world experiences to the classrooms, and it can be traded with nothing else to break the monotony in online learning. Here is how experiential learning can be implemented:
- Let students collaborate to solve problems, learn from each other’s mistakes, or celebrate successes.
- If you teach Computer Science, allow students to program an AI bot on their favorite topic. If you teach English, allow students to dramatize their favorite Shakespeare work. If you teach Business, organize a mock Shark Tank!
- Allow your students to connect with their peers and teachers through social media platforms such as Facebook groups or Twitter chats to learn from one another’s experiences and share their knowledge about topics related to your course content.
By creating engaging activities, you are helping your students to stay motivated and engaged in their learning. This is important because it can help them retain more information from their coursework and boost their final exam scores! If you need more help structuring your online courses, here’s a nifty guide we like to use.
