Facilitating ongoing learning and keeping pupils motivated during any period of school closure is a huge challenge for parents teachers schools and local authorities alike. For you as teachers we understand the difficulty in keeping pupils engaged and ensuring they keep up with the curriculum whilst also monitoring their progress. Here are 5 top tips for enabling your pupils to learn remotely outside of the classroom.
1. Blend New Learning with Revision
This will ensure previous classroom learning isn’t lost. Set a challenge for your class to revise a topic you’ve already taught them. Test their knowledge with a quiz to help it stay fresh in their mind.
2. Monitor Progress
This is vital to inform learning plans & prevent pupils from struggling or becoming overwhelmed. Using an online tool such as IDL makes it simple to monitor individual and class progress. Easy to view graphs and charts allow you to pinpoint learners’ strengths and weaknesses helping you target future activities.
3. Keep Pupils Motivated
Many online learning programmes such as IDL allow teachers to send personalised messages to encourage pupils to do well. Certificates of achievement also help to motivate and encourage learners. You could also give students fun downloadable worksheets or set them online quizzes with their classmates.
4. Be Creative
Encourage pupils to engage with learning in their new study environment. This is an ideal opportunity to teach pupils everyday life skills through activities they couldn’t normally do in the classroom. For example you could get them to look in their kitchen cupboards and write a meal plan for the next few days or get them to plan their weekly shop.
5. Maintain Study Skills
Learning in a new environment can be challenging for many pupils but it is important they keep focussed. Break down the required learning into elements and teach them one at a time to avoid them becoming over faced. Make sure your pupils know what is expected from them in each task and give them prompts if necessary.
IDL can help you to embed these tips into your teaching strategy for distance learning. Their Literacy and Numeracy programmes can be accessed online enabling pupils to learn independently and without the need for supervision. You can monitor individual and class progress easily whilst keeping pupils motivated to learn.
IDL Literacy includes reading typing and spelling exercises ensuring these vital skills aren’t lost during long periods away from the classroom.
IDL’s most recent programme contains lessons made up of interactive mathematical puzzles making solving maths problems fun.
Worksheets
IDL also offers a range of complimentary fun worksheets that can be downloaded for your learners to complete at home.
IDL are currently offering unlimited trials of IDL Literacy and Numeracy until 11th September 2020 and 50% off whole school licences to help support schools during closures until the 1st July 2020. Email [email protected] for more information.
