The pandemic has taken a great toll on our lives, and it has turned situations worse. The worse thing is that your children have no choice but to stay at home because of the pandemic. The idea of learning online is something new to them, and this is the first time they are ever experiencing it that too, even for a span of more than a year.
It prevents them from having interactions with classmates and friends. Therefore, it’s boring and uninteresting. For many students, online learning seems to be a very tedious task as well because the scope of one-on-one interaction is zero or negligible. As a parent, it’s your responsibility to make them feel excited about learning again. Otherwise, they will drift away and get nothing. These are some tips to make online learning more fun for them.
Don’t let them study alone
While teachers are working hard to set up online classes, you shouldn’t let them do everything. You also have to do your share by participating with them during the online sessions. Make sure your children aren’t learning alone. It’s easy for them to get lost while studying online, and they need someone to guide them.
Even if you’re busy with work, you have to spend time helping your children with their studies. Create a study environment at home so even if you can’t be there all the time, learning continues. The best way to do this is to create a schedule and strictly adheres to the same. If parents and other family members in the house stick to a fixed set of schedules, this will help the child to have more focus on online learning sessions.
Look for practical things to learn
The good thing about online classes is that you can teach your children other things apart from academic topics. It’s your opportunity to teach them lifelong skills. You can teach them how to cook, clean the house or fix broken items.
In doing so, you allow your children to be more independent. While some schools work hard to teach these skills, not all of them do. You may not guarantee that your children will learn every subject content well, but they’re getting something out of the learning setup. Please take this opportunity to imbibe some valuable skills to bring out a better version of them. Teach them skills to face the world so that they can survive in any given situation.
Give them time to play
Playing is also an integral part of children’s growth. You have to give them a chance to play at home. It’s even worse since they can’t interact with friends. They have limited resources. If they want to spend more time playing, you shouldn’t say no to it. By staying at home, they already have limited to or access to their friends or to the outside world. So, stopping them from playing, even for some extra hours, might have an impact on their cognitive behavior.
You can even show your support by visiting places with an indoor playground. It teaches your children essential skills. You can visit establishments with indoor playgrounds installed by House of Play. If things get better, you won’t have to worry about visiting these places anymore. All you need is to keep them motivated and should look after the fact that they must not feel being captive in the home. Give them the space they need, and they will bloom accordingly.
Don’t put too much pressure
You want your children to excel in school. You also hope that they get high grades. The problem is when they feel pressure as a result of your expectations. Given the current setup, you understand that it’s already challenging for your children. Don’t add more by telling them to obtain high grades. Do not expect much from them and ask them to score top-notch grades. The process of online learning is way more different from the conventional process of learning, and one needs to invest time as well as patience to become familiar with it.
It’s more important that they enjoy the process and make the most of online learning. It might take time for some students to adjust, and there’s no problem with it. As long as you know that your children are doing their best to deal with the changes, it’s good enough. Never ask them to push beyond their limits or abilities, as it will lead to an utter breakdown. Always keep the supporting hand on them and make them feel comfortable throughout the process.
Offer them with incentives and perks
As it is already said that online learning is very tedious and it restricts children from getting familiar with the outside world, it is important for the parents to provide them with incentives and perks. It could be anything like their favourite food, spending time with them and engaging with them with their desired home games, allowing them to skip self-study for the evening, etc.
This will help them to have the motivation and drive to continue with their online sessions. Set a benchmark and ask them to complete the same to win a prize. This will somewhere create a competitive spirit in them, and they will try to fulfill the goal.
Plan some engaging activities
In-class activities are no doubt one of the best teaching tools. Adapting them to the online environment always calls for some inspiration and consideration about the technologies being used. In modern times, most of the virtual tools used to come with functionalities like creating groups, making quick polls, and sharing a whiteboard. For instance, one activity that is always effective in analyzing the understanding level of the student is to ask them to critically apply it to a meaningful situation that too ‘in front of the class”.
You can do this by requesting some students to draw on the virtual whiteboard, and others will see a similar whiteboard. Asking for participating and different viewpoints on the whiteboard is very easy, and thus you don’t have to wait for the students to walk to the blackboard. This involves an activity in divergent thinking.
It is important that the activities should relate directly both to the class content and the interest of the students from the inventory. Students should conceive these activities as challenging and fun and never just a meaningless exercise for the sake of wasting time.
We have no choice but to pursue this setup, given the current health crisis. Hopefully, things will change, and you can say that it’s not a lost year for learning. Even while studying online, your children benefitted from it. The pointers discussed above will possibly help children to have increased focused on their academics and will also help them to make online learning even more meaningful.
The responsibility and roles of the parent get very crucial in assisting students to have the highest level of concentration on their studies. It remains no doubt that the global pandemic has disrupted the entire education system but based on certain practices and habits, we can still make a better tomorrow for students in the home. Feel free to share your thoughts or queries regarding the discussion below in the comment section.