Without a doubt, it has already been relatively difficult to help students work out a sense of belonging in the typical school or college environment. Turning to remote learning because of the pandemic restrictions and the other challenges has made it even more challenging to keep the educational content inspiring for student engagement.
Some teachers have turned to gamification by implementing Zoom surveys, hassle-free form builder to elicit feedback, or familiar activities that have been used in the classrooms before, while others became confused and could not find a method that would work in a digital medium.
Nevertheless, there are still useful tools that can help enhance online learning and let students participate and stand behind what and how they learn.
5 Tools That Help Increase Student Engagement and School Belonging
1. Google Classroom
This great LMS software always takes first place in most lists when it comes to online education. The most important is that Google Classroom can be accessed free of charge with a plethora of import/export features that make it easy to add to almost any learning environment.
It helps students to belong as they are free to customize things like Google Calendar, plan their assignments, upload blog posts from Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, add videos, record short audio clips for their presentations, and so on. It is also possible to interact privately with the teachers, which would not be possible in a physical classroom environment.
It is what makes online learning beneficial as long as relevant features are addressed.
2. Schoology
Since the majority of students these days spend time busy on social networks, turning to Schoology sounds like a great option to learn in a familiar environment. It must be mentioned right away that Schoology is safe even for middle-school children as they have a phone or desktop computer access with age limitations.
Still, students can work anywhere and contact teachers privately in case they need some help. Teachers, in turn, can leave video or audio messages with the screen sharing functions and explanations that help students understand all the complex subjects. Of course, it may be insufficient in some cases, which is why students can approach search engines with a typical help write my essay request and receive additional help.
Sharing your task files via the Schoology platform also makes it easier as you have it all in one place.
3. Slack
Older or higher education students will appreciate Slack for its wealth of capabilities and features with the support of a multilingual environment. You can start with your dissertation writing in a private space or proceed with your coursework by getting in touch with other students in a separate module while keeping your teachers and college staff in another window with different capabilities.
Slack has a great chat search feature, which makes it easy to find something via keywords. You can also send email alerts and share files securely. The presence of extensive language support also makes it comfortable if you need to learn about new features or practice your language skills.
It will always make it inspiring and fun as learning a new language will change your life in a positive way and will broaden your life’s outlook.
4. Explain Everything
Although it is positioned as a remote digital whiteboard, it is way more than that because you can create video lessons where your students may participate as well. For example, learning about South America, you can add home videos or presentations by individual students as the lesson is being created.
Likewise, discussing complex engineering subjects, you can provide YouTube clips and ask college students for help as they share various ideas and provide you with the best solutions. You can also add screen captions and edit your videos by adding animation or any other interactive features.
It goes beyond the slideshows since you can always get creative and let your virtual class participate.
5. Socrative
It is one of the best solutions that help keep students engaged via clever organization methods and interaction-based learning. Teachers can implement things like surveys, quizzes, and games. It makes it possible to inspire the learners and let them leave their feedback about what they like the most.
It works just like social media where most students are used to voting and choosing the most popular posts or pictures. Teachers can create private rooms for learners who find it challenging, which also helps to create a sense of belonging where no one is left behind.
There are many pre-installed group games that the students will enjoy as they learn.
Sharing of Online Responsibilities for Student Engagement
If we want to help the students belong, it becomes evident that there should be certain shared responsibilities. For example, solutions like Google Classroom make it possible to assign certain roles to students like planning and adding blog posts to relevant school projects.
It lets the learners feel engaged and helps them to belong to the learning process as they are not only there to learn and answer a plethora of questions but to create something new and show their unique skills. You can organize group slideshows and ask your students for help if you require technical guidance.
The purpose here is to work together and let every student participate as cooperation and learning take place. It is the human contribution, analysis, compassion, and care that should always come first regardless of what tool you might choose.