The pandemic made many of us shift to an online work-life either partially or completely and the course instructor is one such person whose work life was completely shifted.
If you are a course instructor, delivering a lecture online, it may be sometimes tedious, especially when you have a bunch of Gen Z students as your audience!
Forget online tutoring! Tutoring gen z students in physical mode is also challenging(as they lack lengthy attention spans and always cling to their smart devices even when told not to do so). Tutoring online makes it even more challenging, as you cannot see your students clearly or what they are doing during your lecture. So, you really cannot figure out whether your course content was delivered decently.
So how do you manage these difficult times of an online lecture for Gen Z students?
You might be wondering why I stress so much about Gen Z students. Well, the reason is simple! “ Gen Z’s are now all grown up! Their time has come! Universities are now welcoming Gen Z students.”
Gen Z is very contrasting to that of Gen Y & X, particularly because they are digital natives. Teaching for Gen Z requires special research on their psychological characteristics & behaviors. I will update you on this in a later post!
Coming to our topic, once again, here are a few tips I managed to spot from my research.
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1. Ask many questions by randomly picking a student in the online lecture
This approach was a success for me for keeping my students’ attention on the course content. Picking randomly makes the audience quite anxious as students do not know when they would be picked to answer questions.
Also, this is a great way to identify your students are actively attending the lecture. Usually, students switch off their cameras and may be engaged in some other activities. we cannot compel university students to switch on cameras either. If they are active in the lecture they turn up if asked to answer a question.
2. Try out the Pomodoro Technique ( 50–10 / 25–5)
I got to know the name from the book “Ikigai” by Hector Garcia & Frances Miralles (page 66). What happens here is you teach your students for 50 min and give them a 10 min break or tutor for 25 min and have a 5 min break. Constantly looking at a digital screen for a long time is strenuous to the eyes and the brain, making you and your students feel mentally stressed very easily. Give them and yourself some time to stretch, grab a coffee and start fresh after the break.
3. Make them do a difficult activity during the online lecture time (but not very difficult ones!)
If your lecture is 3 hours long and you keep on going speaking for straight 3 hours…, many will drop away mid-way (they will be logged in to the live lecture but doing something else).
Tip: Prepare the activities in advance. Clearly define to yourself the challenge the students will solve in class and the learning outcomes from each challenge.
E.g., a challenge may be to searching information on the Internet and writing in their own words (the learning outcomes of this challenge are to practice effective searching from online reference materials, practicing to identify the validity of online materials, learning to create your work by referencing others work).
4. Utilize Online Learning facilitating Materials
There are many out there on the Internet and for free of charge. e.g. Kahoot, Padlet, Trello, Boomcards, Quizlet are some tools out of the many free tools.
These digital tools are welcomed warmly by the digital native students. They quickly learn how to navigate through such tools and they are keen to learn course content facilitated by digital technology rather than the conventional way (e.g. referring to heaps of textbooks).
Lastly…Break the Ice…All the time
Gen Z are naturally shy people, who prefer less talk. It is very difficult to make them talk and collaborate as a social circle. Collaboration is crucial during any class be it online or physical mode as it allows students to to share ideas, experiences, solve problems and bring about positive student outcomes.
You can check out some cool icebreakers for your next online lecture from the following links.
Thanks for Reading!
