Online learning is presenting a set of new challenges for teachers, parents and students. Keep students motivated and on track by addressing student procrastination and preventing procrastination in Online Classes.
We all know how difficult it can be at times to keep our students motivated on their schoolwork and engaged with the task at hand. Education from home is becoming a way of life and COVID19 restrictions are creating a host of new challenges and forcing us to become more adaptable in the way we teach students. If we thought students talking in class was a problem, it can be easy to see what they might be trying to get away with at home.
With these new teaching methods and approaches we are encountering new sets of problems for preventing procrastination and regulating this new online teaching environment. While it has always been an age old problem of protecting students from harmful content and preventing procrastination, online teaching has made distractions an ever present issue. Whether it’s messaging their friends’ memes during class or gossiping on Facebook messenger with the teacher on mute... these are the new challenges we must learn to navigate.
Without the physical presence of a teacher watching students and monitoring their online behavior, we want to ensure students are still reaching their potential when learning online.
Use the carrot, not the stick approach to Student Procrastination
By rewarding good behavior, you build a relationship with your student that drives self-motivation rather than acting out of fear of punishment. We are trying to make happy, self-sufficient young adults and this means assisting them in developing their own personal processes to achieve. Remember how a golden star on your chore chart would give you a sense of accomplishment and pride in your achievements. This is the kind of feeling we want to replicate to create self-motivated learners, so you don’t have to watch over the student’s shoulder. Instill your student with a sense of pride by noticing their improvements, providing positive feedback and small rewards for consistent progress.
Block out periods for time wasting activities
Restricting certain behaviors all together can sometimes backfire and I’m sure you remember your mentality as a rebellious teen when told not to do something. Instead of altogether eliminating something like time wasting games or social media from your children’s lives, sometimes simply establishing boundaries can be sufficient. This is particularly helpful if you have a meaningful discussion with your children and negotiate setting in place agreed upon limitations. Speaking with your children about how they use social media and how much screen time they would be happy with, unrelated to school. To prevent in-class distractions you can be in charge of their social media passwords and only allow them log-in access during your agreed upon times. That way they know, despite being limited in their time of use, they are not being prevented to do something all-together. Productivity goes up and rebellion goes down.
Software that protects students like a virtual guardian
Protect your students from misusing unnecessary features for harmful content. With a product like Safe Doc, we automatically block searching obscene images, documents, videos from the web. With bullying unfortunately common place in a lot of school systems, and students access to the internet like never before, monitoring these behaviors is useful for both teachers/partners as well as beneficial for the student. At Safe Doc we even have the ability to block offensive emojis and prevent student bullying on a large scale.
Encourage collaboration to prevent students procrastination
Designing teams for students to work within creates a community that can support each other and assist further growth. It also drives a further sense of motivation, to contribute to the collective and to be at a similar level to their peers. Study groups, fun bonding games and content quizzes can further engage a student and work in ways other than listening to content and writing in response. This method also helps students with other learning styles such as kinetic, which can easily be taken away in a virtual classroom setting. It doesn’t have to be an elaborate activity, just something unique and that everyone can participate in regardless of their surroundings.
Here at Safe Doc, we understand that it is not always an easy task keeping students engaged in an online setting or preventing student procrastination when teaching online. But through adopting some of these methods and applying them to your student’s virtual classroom experience, we think you will start to see big results in student participation and lowered procrastination levels.
