5 Fun Ways To Meaningfully Connect With Students
8th June 2021
‘A teacher is one who makes himself progressively unnecessary.’ – Thomas Carruthers
Being a teacher, these days, is not an easy task. To achieve effective productivity necessitates an authentic connection with students. The reason behind this is when your learners feel understood, they feel safe. Teaching practice has changed over the years and the CACHE level 2 certificate in supporting teaching and learning programs is moulding teaching professionals to manage all types of classrooms effectively.
The various creative and funny learning developments deliver seamless opportunities for students as well as teachers. Nowadays, it's absolutely different teaching on a computer or laptop, but those individuals who are behind the screen are the same. All you need to do is prepare yourself for today’s educational world. But how do you do that? Let us go through some of the enjoyable ways and strategies that you can use to shape a classroom community productively.
1. Make Connection In The First Few Minutes
Introduce yourself, say something silly or ridiculous and start your class. An effective way to earn conviction and make connections is to give your learners a quick overview of what to expect that day. You may also tell them your favourite colour, favourite cartoon, or favourite food, most of the time kids will want to tell their favourites as well! Make eye contact and listen to what your pupils are telling you.
2. Make Zoom and Google Meets Interesting
Two free video chatting resources work well for virtual classes, Zoom and Google Meet. Zoom has an exclusive function for setting up breakout rooms that help teachers to split their larger class into smaller separate rooms. Google Meet is another free resource for video chats. You may conduct a virtual talent show or you may also post a multiple-choice question on the screen, and label each answer with an emoji or character an emoji or bitmoji. Ask learners to reply with the emoji/character in the chat.
3. Digital Spirit Week
If you haven’t tried this, perhaps you are missing something really effective. You may conduct a week-long Digital Spirit Week, and students could send in their pictures every day for the different themes. You may ask your students to take a selfie or picture and add five adjectives squares to their pictures. Also, you may ask your learners to show “what they used to think, now they think” with graphics or pictures and so on. Or perhaps you may ask your learners to dress like your favourite character day and make them free to write about something that they are doing during this time.
Watch this video for some handy tips to help you deal with disinterested learners.
4. Communicate
This supports keeping your emotions out of the discussion. While teaching your students, if any problems intensify, it’s important you handle it in a subtle way. You may communicate with the administration department but then, yet again, parent’s involvement is tremendously important. Keep track of the dates and situations of the complications.
5. Anchor Charts
Anchor Charts are the game-changers. There are numerous different approaches it can be used, depending on your area of training, especially for visual learners. This tool is being used to support teaching and to move students toward accomplishing success with instructions taught in class. Anchor charts help learners to recognize learning goals, review ideas, and establish learning opportunities.
Apart from these five approaches, having a welcoming and open expression makes a giant variance. Just make sure that your facial expression is honest. To thrive in today’s 21st century education, teaching professionals need to upgrade themselves with the CACHE level 2 certificate in supporting teaching and learning programs. Building certain meaningful connections can make a huge impression on your aptitude to successfully teach or coach a kid. We hope these ideas will definitely help you to find the magic in your classroom.
Written By : Bindita Sinha
