Voice and Laughter – How to grow student engagement online
Student engagement poses new possibilities and challenges as we have moved to remote teaching and learning. Finnish education expert working in Abu Dhabi, Jaakko Skantsi, discusses key learnings on student engagement during the Covid-19 era.
“Student engagement means that a student has a voice, a right to have an opinion,” Jaakko Skantsi says. This leads to a challenge: how to enable all voices to be heard, even when only meeting each other online. Guidelines about this vary between schools, in some schools it is mainly the teacher who has a right to an opinion. But this may lead to problems. School is not only about learning, it is about social belonging. Now, that we are all online, we must build this sense of belonging with blocks that might be unfamiliar to us – and for students to accomplish this and stay motivated towards their studies, it would be advisable for them to be able to participate in online peer discussion about their studies frequently.
“Student well-being makes learning possible,” Skantsi says. If a student’s day to day life is filled with overwhelming stress or lack of support, learning takes a hit. In face-to-face teaching, teachers have much more opportunities to stay on track on the well-being of their students. Remote learning makes this more difficult. “It would be good if the student and teacher could have one-on-one online discussions every now and then, which might encourage a student to open up a bit about their life,” Skantsi says. If this is not possible, small group discussions are fine too. But in a group situation, a teacher should be careful on how to group the students so that everyone will be comfortable.
“Know your students,” Skantsi advices teachers. This means a lot in remote teaching. Knowing your students means that you be better able to trust them – and trust is a big factor in student engagement. “Even the younger students are most often very well able to work rather independently alone and in peer-groups,” Skantsi says. Students should be able to get support from their teacher but not feel they are being overly-monitored, after a certain limit, monitoring tends to lower the student’s own engagement in studies.
Don’t ignore the “small” things. “Some people are worried about the damage this lockdown may pose for children’s education,” Skantsi says. “But I am confident that even if this continues for few more months, permanent damage isn’t done.” So, ease up on stress about official tests and the future for a moment. Remember to let your students have a laugh together, even online. Laughing together builds up engagement like no other! Hold on to familiar routines: they build up a sense of safety for students. Have guided activity moments, such as fitness or drama, so that group cohesion grows and remind the worried parents that their kid will do just fine.
Jakko Skantsi is the Counsellor of Education and Science at Embassy of Finland in Abu Dhabi. Mr. Skantsi has expertise in Finnish education, education consultation and international collaboration from ECEC to Higher Education. He has successfully worked in multiple international projects as a team member and as a project manager. As a counsellor of Science and Education, Mr. Skantsi helps to build bridges between Finnish Higher Education Institutes and prospective local partners as well as providing information on research possibilities for the stakeholders in Finland and abroad. Mr. Skantsi works in close collaboration with the Ministry of Education and Culture, the Finnish National Agency for Education (EDUFI), Finnish Higher Education Institutes and Research Institutes as well as with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for Finland as a member of global Team Finland Knowledge network. Mr. Skantsi is a regional counsellor based in the Embassy of Finland in Abu Dhabi, but working in the whole GCC area.
