Amidst all of the chaos and confusion the pandemic has brought, one thing is for sure: teaching is more important than ever. Young students need to be taught in order to maintain their education and keep up with the rest of the world. However, with in-person teaching restrictions in place, and teachers and students out sick more often, it can be difficult to know how to proceed.
So this blog post will offer some tips and strategies on how best to teach young students in these uncertain times.
How To Thrive While Teaching In The Pandemic
Talk to your students about the pandemic
This one is perhaps the most important. You cannot expect your students to come in and immediately begin listening to you, especially if they’ve watched their parents or someone they know get sick themselves. They may not even understand what’s happening exactly, which is completely understandable. So the first step to teaching these kids is to explain what’s going on in the first place.
Basically, you just want them to know the essentials, such as:
- The pandemic is not just in this country, but all over the world
- It’s scary for some people, but as long as they practice good hygiene, they can minimize the risk of getting sick
- Most people recover after a week or two, but some are sick longer
Once you’ve explained the situation to them, you can then start teaching them properly. And this way, you’ve ensured they’re at least listening to you and not as distracted or worried about the pandemic.
And more importantly, by getting the information directly from a teacher, they’re less likely to believe unsubstantiated rumors they hear from their classmates and other outside sources.
Get familiar with digital teaching methods
Nowadays, many schools, businesses, and organizations aren’t meeting in person anymore. Or at the very least, there’s been more online meetings and teaching sessions than ever before. So if you’re going to be teaching students, you need to get familiar with these digital tools.
The good news is they’re not hard to figure out. And in most cases, you can watch people teach others how to use them on YouTube.
Here’s a couple digital tools you’ll want to know about:
- Google Classroom, which makes tracking assignments and grades between teachers and students simple and easy
- Zoom or Google Hangouts for online lectures and meetings
- Loom or Youtube for recording videos that contain your lectures or other important information
There’s certainly far more tools than this. But this is enough to get you started and help you keep up with your students and their education.
Help them stay organized and on track with their schoolwork
It can be a lot harder to keep track of tasks and assignments during a pandemic. Not only is there the distraction of all the health scares, but you may have to deal with students missing school or getting confused between the online and in-person lectures.
The best way to combat this is by simplifying and organizing so it’s crystal clear to your students what’s going on. That way, they won’t wonder what needs to be done and you won’t waste time explaining everything more than once.
Here’s a couple of ways you can go about this:
- Use Google Classroom or some other online tool to give out assignments, track their progress, and let them submit work electronically
- Set up regular times to meet with your students and go over what they’re doing at home to make sure that they’re staying on track
- Create Google Calendars that everyone can see and use to figure out what tasks they’re working on
Doing these things will make it much easier to stay on top of your student’s work and make sure they’re still getting everything done – even during a pandemic. So be sure to give them a shot.
These Strategies Will Make Teaching In the Pandemic Easier
This pandemic has been tough on us all. But it doesn’t have to completely derail you and your students. With a few small tweaks to what you’re doing now, you can keep teaching at a high level and still get through this.
And something to keep in mind:
Digital competency is even more important than ever since more people are forced to meet and work online. So you can do your students a huge favor by helping improve their typing skills with the tools found at KeyboardingOnline. Make sure to check it out today!