It has always been vital to building ties among students. Students are more active and interested in a class when they are recognised, know their classmates well, and have a friendly teacher. A teacher, whether you teach online or offline, should always promote connections in your classroom. Building such a classroom environment is not very difficult, however, it requires effort. Students may build connections on their own, but some connections need the teacher to put effort into. So, what can a teacher do to build connections between students? Keep reading to find out.
When we talk about remote learning, we instantly think about students learning using apps for classroom, which also means that they connect mostly with the teacher and least with their peers. This might make the students a little under-confident or shy in asking their doubts and putting forward their opinions. To ease the students out and build the connection between your students, here are a few tips:
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Use The Classroom App To Its Best
Education apps provide a lot of useful features and allow teachers and students to communicate with one another. These also make it easier for students to connect. Students can conduct discussions in the chatbox, and they can also move into the breakout rooms in groups. Teachers can monitor and administer these chats and rooms to maintain tabs on their students’ conversations: add intriguing points for the kids to discuss, if necessary.
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Hold Events
Promote healthy competition among students in not just academics but also in other activities such as quizzes, debates, brain games, singing, etc. This will help kids connect outside of the classroom and allow them to have fun. You can delegate duties to the students so that they can join together and collaborate to organise such events.
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Promote Group Activities
Assign group tasks instead of individual projects and assignments. Divide your students into groups and ask them to work together to finish the task. This will encourage them to interact and connect. They will learn about each other and are very likely to become friends.
You can also organize group activities online such as quizzes and debates. You can assign tasks to them in which they will need to collaborate with each other.
You can also be creative in doing so. One interesting way of promoting connection through group activities is to assign them tasks to learn about each other’s behaviour, culture, likings, etc and present a report to the class, This will be a fun activity which will help them learn a lot about teaching other.
Form smaller groups so that they all play equal roles in the activities and interact more.
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Assign Different Roles And Responsibilities
To ensure better functioning and proper interaction and no biases, you can delegate work among the groups formed. You might appoint someone to be the group leader and ask them to start the conversation within the group. This will reduce the likelihood of students becoming perplexed and waiting for each other to take the initiative.
Also, it is advisable that the groups should be formed for at least two or three activities and should not be shuffled unless and until they blend in well and know each one of them. You should keep a tab on this.
Final Thoughts
A teacher is responsible for promoting connections in his class and group activities always work in such cases. This will also help you learn student behaviour.
