How to Create a Personalized Learning Experience in the Virtual Classroom

There is no doubt that paying individual attention to every student is one of the best ways to provide a personalized learning experience and achieve the learning goals. This approach is easy to apply during one-on-one sessions when the teacher only works with a single student. However, in large classes, it can be challenging to provide a customized learning experience for every student.

The new reality of teaching remotely poses even more challenges to teachers as they need to adjust their techniques and approaches in order to be effective in the virtual classroom, as well as to take advantage of the new opportunities that technologies create for better class management, for teaching more engaging content, and so much more. 

Click here – How To Learn ReactJS And How Does It Work

How to create a personalized learning experience in the virtual classroom when teaching multiple students?

1. Bring flexibility and diversity to your lessons
   
   Be flexible with the curriculum and include diverse materials, content, and activities in your lessons such as texts, video and audio, active exercises for drawing, brainstorming, etc. to correspond to the different learning styles of your students. 

We all have different learning styles. One way to ensure that the lesson is easy for every student to understand is to include various types of learning materials. Fortunately, the virtual classroom offers plenty of options to create the perfect environment for most efficient learning. Teachers can easily store the learning materials and sources like articles, images, diagrams, videos, etc. in the database where they are available to use with a click of the mouse. 

There are many options for creating learning materials using the features in the virtual classroom, like the online whiteboard. Teachers can prepare the content in advance and can also incorporate activities for the live sessions where students can write, discuss, draw, doodle, and create directly on the online whiteboard using all the familiar tools like brushes, shapes, typing, handwriting, etc.

1. 1. Be sure to include everybody
      
      One of the most important factors for effective teaching is student engagement. Remote learning in a virtual environment may be used as an excuse by the shy students to avoid actively participating in the exercises and the topics in the lesson. The best way to prevent this from happening is to remember to include every student in different activities and discussions. The pleasant atmosphere in the virtual classroom is a great environment even for the shy students to be encouraged to participate and be more engaged in the learning session. Having control over the mics, the raise-hand button, and the chat can also help in class management and in affording students the opportunity to speak without being interrupted and distracted. 

 Click here – Deciding When to See a Doctor: 4 Health Conditions to Take Seriously

1. Strategic grouping in the breakout rooms
   
   Working in small groups is an awesome approach that develops the students’ skills for teamwork, tolerance, creativity, and persistence. It is also a great way to enrich the personalized learning experience of every student by assigning different projects and tasks. The strategic grouping of students helps them improve their skills by working together. The virtual classroom offers the perfect feature for this purpose – breakout rooms. The teacher can assign the teams for the current project and let them work in different breakout rooms where they can use all the available features, especially the online whiteboard.

• Personalized authentic feedback

One of the easiest ways to give individual attention to every student and enrich their personalized learning experience is by giving them authentic person-specific feedback. General feedback does not have the same effect. Always focus on the positive and encourage their good work. 

• Individual learning plan for every student

Use the features and the tools in the virtual classroom to build an individual learning plan for every student by creating project summaries, sheets with goals, diagrams, to-do lists, and much more. Include the goals for the semester, long-term goals, as well as different individual assignments. The virtual classroom makes it easy to store all the information and track each student’s progress .

• Schedule face-to-face meetings in the virtual classroom with every student

Having dedicated time for consultations outside the regular learning sessions is a great way to give individual attention to every student. You can use the option to hold one-on-one meetings in the virtual classroom to discuss a student’s progress, answer their questions, as well as gather ideas for new projects and assignments. 

1. 1. Acknowledge your students’ progress and achievements
      
      Enrich the learning experience and the motivation of your students by acknowledging their individual accomplishments and successes. There is an abundance of ways to do this in the virtual classroom. For instance, you can create daily goals on the online whiteboard and write down your students’ accomplishments for the day. You can create badges, certificates, etc. to award your students when achieving their goals. Teachers can use emails to share with parents and classmates what was accomplished during that week or semester. 

 

• The benefits of project-based learning

Projects are a wonderful way to let students work at their own pace and express themselves in the most convenient way. Integrate projects into your curriculum and make sure to include a lot of flexibility in the assignments to give students the opportunity to be creative and more engaged in the process. For example, when you assign a project, encourage students to be creative in completing the assignment. They can write essays and stories, create presentations, draw, take photos, create videos, and so on. Share their work in the virtual classroom and use the occasion to encourage discussions about the topics of the projects.

• Encourage students to be proactive in the learning process and ask for ideas for the lessons

When students feel more engaged in the learning process, they are significantly more motivated to study, explore, ask questions, and participate in discussions. Encourage students to express their interests and give you feedback on the activities and exercises. For instance, if playing games in the virtual classroom raises the excitement and interest of your students, then find a way to incorporate games into your lessons. 

The tools and features of the virtual classroom make it possible to turn the challenge of teaching remotely into an advantage, and provide your students with the best learning experience. Having the dedication and flexibility to adapt to the new environment and tools is the key to success; this attitude will expand your horizons and bring your teaching skills to the next level.