7 Easy Ways to Empower Students During E-Learning
“Hello?”
“Have you checked your email?”
Two minutes later, my heart sunk as my mind raced. E-Learning. For weeks.
Three thoughts popped into my head.
What would be necessary to make sure every student could be an active learner and access their educational materials while e-learning?
How could we empower students to take ownership of their learning when there wasn’t a teacher close to encourage them?
How many assistive technology tools can get stuffed into an SUV in an hour?
I began to gather all of the materials I might need over the next months.
Less than two hours later, my SUV crammed full, I headed home.
Barriers to E-Learning
Teachers redesigned lessons to accommodate the restrictions of e-learning and students learned to connect from tables, bedrooms, kitchens, and back porches.
Unfortunately, there are many more barriers to e-learning than a well-planned lesson.
Many students do not have access to reliable technology or internet service.
Many others do not have access to adults to support learning the materials at home.
Learning Management systems get overwhelmed
Technology requires a steep learning curve.
We now ask students to learn new systems, new platforms, new technologies, new routines, and navigate new websites.
All without the physical presence of the teachers they have learned to trust to guide them.
The learning curve is high. For educators, students, and parents.
This sudden change, without the opportunity to foreshadow and teach the new skills, has left some students feeling like they have lost control of their education, and in some cases their entire world.
What can we do to empower students?
The Good News About E-Learning
The good news- Most students have significant experience with the platform we now teach from. Sometimes more than the teacher they work with.
Our students have been raised in a technology-rich environment.
They have never known a world without cell phones and touch technology.
Swiping and texting are second nature to them as they have experienced it countless times in their lifetime.
This means while educators are learning video conferencing and how to remember to turn on our webcam, our students are using their background knowledge of platforms like Snapchat, Facetime, and Facebook Messenger.
And they come out ahead.
They know how to talk via video call.
Students are not scared of technology
They are likely to try to enlarge, drag, or adjust their digital environment.
They are ready to experiment and try and fail with these new digital tools.
Years of interaction with a variety of technologies that require swiping, clicking, and moving digital tools have prepared them.
How Can We Use Student’s Knowledge of Digital Content?
First, we need to remember we are teachers. This means we're skilled at providing materials in a way that allows students to learn.
Then we need to realize our students know many of the technologies we're using better than we do, or are less hesitant to learn them.
Take a deep breath and get back to teaching. And empower students to use technology that meets their learning needs.
Empowering Students
1- The Try Me Button
Do you remember walking down the toy aisle as a child?
Magical toys line the shelves with the words “Try Me” stamped on them.
What did you do?
You “tried” right? You immediately walked up to the toy and began to play with it.
You touched it, you tried it, you saw what it did.
And if there was more than one feature, you took the time to try them all.
You understood what the toy did- and then took that knowledge to your parent and used that amazing feature to try to convince them to buy it for you.
Because of our fear and hesitancy with technology, we often fear students will ‘break’ things if they try them.
However, as our students tend to be aware, few things can be ‘broken’ in a Learning Management System (LMS), web meeting platform, or web browser that cannot be fixed by logging out, restarting, or shutting down.
When you allow a student to explore and “try” out features in a system, they learn what each feature does.
They learn how to control and manipulate the tools to what works best for them.
Quick Win-
Think for example of some of the video conferencing tools you’re using.
You may have taught students how to turn on and off their mic and camera. But what about features that customize their web conference window?
Take a ten-minute brain-break during your next class to take students on a ‘tour’ of features on your conferencing platform.
Show students:
How to ‘pin’ a participant
How to show or hide the view of themselves
How to change the view to speaker or grid
How to add closed captioning
Then let your students try. If they find a feature you didn’t know of, let them share.
Consider the benefits of knowing these things for students with hearing or visual impairments. Or for students with fatigued eyes from so much screen time.
Let students pretend they are in the toy aisle and let them try the features out and get excited.
2- Let them teach
Not lessons, not academic content, but tools. As mentioned above, students tend to be intuitive when it comes to technology.
Let students teach each other how to do things.
Let students share features they have found and help each other.
Let students discuss and problem-solve together.
This empowers the student doing the teaching and encourages peers to try things out and ask questions.
Quick Win
Create a Check With a Classmate policy. When a student struggles with something, instead of reaching out to you first, have a plan of how they can ask each other for help.
Create a network of peer support. Students will understand the tools better themselves and will learn how to seek help when you're unavailable.
3- Experts Everywhere
As educators, we're used to being the one to do the teaching.
Let the student be the one who knows the most. Let them learn and show you how to do something with the LMS or the web conferencing platform.
Odds are along the way, they will figure out how to enlarge something or submit an assignment differently.
Take the time to let them share and learn from them.
Quick Win
Plan for a ten-minute technology Show and Tell once a week in your class.
Take this time to show something quick and fun you learned about the technology you work with this week and allow your students to do the same.
You will be surprised at the useful things students will be able to show you.
4- Allow project-based learning
Take this opportunity to encourage students to do real-life learning.
Whenever possible, let them choose how to complete a task or show their learning.
Students are not in classrooms.
They are in their own environments.
They know what materials they have and do not have and they have creative ideas. Give open-ended tasks and let students choose how to show their learning.
For example, if you're doing a novel study, let students choose to bake something from a recipe a character talks about, or dress up like a character, or create a skit with their siblings, or use online tools to make a poster, or…. The opportunities for self-expression and creativity are immense right now.
While this is called e-learning, remember the internet is just the platform for delivering content.
Learning and responding and creating can be done offline as well.
Quick Win-
Take a look at one of your upcoming lessons.
Download the E-Learning Lesson Review here and think about how you could make the assignment or check-for-understanding an off-line experience.
Once you have thought of one-way students could show what they have learned in an offline manner, review your lesson again, and come up with at least two more.
Remember- not every student will have access to the same materials in their home. Try to have at least one that requires minimal supplies.
5- Educational DIY
In the classroom, it is hard to let students customize things like their browser window, their desk space, their seating, and more.
Now that students are home, encourage them to create a learning space, both digital and physical that works for them.
From an assistive technology standpoint, help students find browser tools that work best for them.
Think about things like screen enlargement, font choices, screen brightness, alternate seating, standing at a counter with a computer, etc.
In this environment, students have more ability to be flexible and adapt their work area than they ever could in a classroom desk.
Let students show you their digital techniques and settings- perhaps many of these need to work their way into the classroom when they return.
Quick Win-
Share with students your e-learning space if possible. How do you set yourself up to sit for hours? Where is your screen so it is easily viewed?
Let students share their techniques and solutions as well.
Keep track of what each student sets up and prefers. You may learn many students prefer their screen darker, or they like their device propped up higher.
Use this list to adapt your in-person learning when students return.
6- Bring On The Fur!
Your students leave their homes every day to come to school and their classrooms.
During this time, they are encouraged to leave “home at home”.
In elementary school, students are encouraged to bring in pictures and make posters during their turn as “student of the week” or something similar.
As students get older they are encouraged to focus on school.
This is no longer possible in an e-learning environment.
Whether we're providing content for students to study at their own pace or we're meeting in live video conferences, students are surrounded by home.
Asking students to focus 100% on school is not realistic in this environment and now is a great time to recognize the student as a whole person.
If a younger sibling walks on camera, say hi. If a student shares a photo of their cat dressed up as the character from their novel study, ask the cat’s name.
Now is a perfect time to help students recognize learning happens all day, every day, not only in the classroom.
Quick Win-
Show your students you're a real person too.
I will never forget the first time I saw one of my students at the grocery store.
Their jaw dropped, their eyes widened, and before I could process what came next, they screamed across the store, “Mrs. Frost!!! What are YOU doing HERE?!?”
I could feel the heat climb into my cheeks as all eyes in the store turned to stare at me as I tried to reassure the student teachers do, in fact, grocery shop.
Our students see us in our classrooms. Many times they do not consider we have lives outside of the school building. And sometimes we may forget our students do as well.
Show your students e-learning is different for you too. Whether you're teaching from your classroom, your home office, or perched on top of a pile of pillows at your kitchen table, show your students you're being flexible and finding ways to make e-learning work.
And don’t be afraid to take a minute to introduce your dog when they jump into your lap, the principal when she walks into your classroom, or show the weird pile of pillows that keeps you propped up to see your screen.
7- Teach grace
Students no longer have a set schedule of classes and learning periods.
Many are expected to help and the house, watch siblings, deal with distractions, and some work outside of the home.
Empower your student to make decisions about their time and schedule.
Teach grace to students who fall behind or are overwhelmed.
Let them know real-life situations and learning can go together, but sometimes the schedule has to be adjusted.
Quick Win-
The next time you feel behind or do not have something ready for class, be vulnerable and tell your students.
Explain that even as an adult sometimes things do not go according to plan. And explain how you're going to fix it.
Remind students they may also fall behind or miss a deadline. Show the importance of making a plan to fix it and move forward instead of giving up.
This too shall pass.
Soon we will pack up our SUVs and put away our make-shift offices and head back to the classroom.
What can we take away and learn from this experience?
How can we help our students feel empowered and in control of their education?
How do we hold onto the connection with the whole student, not just the portion we see in the classroom?
Not during e-learning but every day going forward.
The skills we're teaching now will reach far beyond these months.
And they will be much more than academic.
We can teach our students to be in control of their learning. To speak up, to share, to learn, to engage, to adapt.
While I hope to never again have to learn how much equipment an SUV can hold on short notice, I'm grateful for this opportunity to teach students learning isn’t something we do passively in a school.
We are immersed in learning every day if we take the opportunity.
Download Your Free Printable
This printable gives you an easy way to look at your lessons and find easy ways to add strategies to empower students without needing to spend lots of time changing your lessons!
Follow these steps to make sure your next lesson has a fun way to help students have ownership over their learning:
Download the PDF. You will get the free printable and will join my mailing list full of timely e-learning tips and printables. Just click HERE.
Print a few copies. Leave them sitting on your desk, in your classroom, any place you stop to reflect.
When you are planning a lesson or reflecting on a previous period, pick up the Empowering E-Learners Worksheet. Pick up a fun pen and fill out the worksheet to plan quick activities for students.
Teach. With confidence, knowing you are empowering your students to take ownership of their e-learning.
