Effective Online Communication between Students and Teachers

Effective Online Communication

Learn the essential communication skills for both students and teachers in the online classroom

6 TECHNIQUES FOR

Learn the essential communication skills for both students and teachers in the online classroom

BETWEEN STUDENTS AND TEACHERS

Learn the essential communication skills for both students and teachers in the online classroom

Non-verbal communication Non-verbal cues are essential if the teacher is talking, and the student’s microphones are muted. Despite that, you can still see them on camera, so do not forget to be on the lookout for the verbal communicative cues. Also, since you will use the chatbox a lot, start considering emoticons or the lack of emoticons as verbal cues, since the use of emoticons is really important in daily conversation, especially with young people. They can be considered as digital verbal cues, which show us how someone feels at the moment. Using Bitmojis is fun, and you can motivate your students to install the Bitmoji app and make their own, personal emojis.

Friendliness Friendliness is still important, even in the online classroom. Even though we are communicating through the screen, we need to foster a feeling of connection among our students. Start your class by asking every student how was their day, and how they feel. Acknowledge their feelings and emotions before you start with the lesson, and you will see that they will participate more and be more motivated.

Open-mindedness When we say open-mindedness, we mean the general understanding of being privileged. What does being privileged mean in this situation? Having a steady job, not worrying over the roof above our heads, having access to technology and the internet, healthcare, or what will our next meal be. After understanding that a lot of us are privileged, we can start opening our minds and understanding that some of our students may lack the resources to attend our lessons and communicate with us. These students need us the most. We also need to motivate other students to be more open-minded and understand that not all of us come from the same background.

Listening Listening has always been the most important aspect of communication, yet we tend to forget it so easily. Try to apply the student-centered learning approach and try to drift away from frontal teaching. Include your students into group research, interpretation, discussions. Motivate your students to listen to their classmates. Most of all, don’t forget to listen to your students yourself. They will tell you what they understand and what should be your next step – both verbally and non-verbally.

Confidence Be confident! You will make mistakes. The applications and technology will not listen to you. Apps will crash, the internet connection will be slow, your dog or child may jump in the background. Be confident, and don’t let distractions ruin your lesson. The same goes for the students – motivate your students not to care about mistakes they make and let them know that it is ok to do just ok.

Feedback The information we share with our students during the live lesson is probably the most important part of our communication, after listening. It is better to complete fewer activities and cover less content than to just run through the units and activities you prepared. Effective feedback will also have a positive impact not only on their learning but also on their mental wellbeing.