I am a huge fan of building community when teaching online. It is a challenge but I like the challenge that it presents. I like getting to know my students, what their experiences of maths are and I like to get going quickly. My favourite tool for getting to know my students is Flipgrid. Flipgrid allows us all to record a video saying hello and answer some ice breaker questions. I quite like asking how many times you have sat the GCSE exam before or how many pets do you have. Something so that they can all connect. I make a video too showing off the bedlam that is my house and then they can connect with me. We can then use Flipgrid again because we have overcome any difficulties we have with using Flipgrid early doors meaning that we can harness it's full power when we start learning.
If Flipgrid isn't for you, you can replicate this in Google Slides. You can create a Slide deck with the name of each student written at the top and ask them some questions on the slide. They then record a video on their pwn device and insert it onto the slides. This is my default tool for asking students to reflect on how their revision is going and sharing top tips with other learners sometimes over Flipgrid. It is slightly more formal and I think that makes students be more succinct.
If video makes you or your students uncomfortable you can do the same activity but without asking them to insert videos. Using a named slide deck, students find the slide of their name and insert a collage of images that reflect them and their interests. They can add text too to personalise it further.
Once we have been introduced I like to give my students a space to communicate. Google Classroom is my space to communicate with them and Google Currents or Google Hangouts Chat can be their space. I turn on join via a link and share the link to the students. I inform them that it is optional and I recognise that I teach adults resit GCSE so this may not be appropriate for all ages. I am obviously in the chat and the currents group too. But we set expectations at the outset that it is their space to communicate and I will respond if they need me to. I ask them to help me out and say if you know the answer to a question from one of your peers please respond to save me doing it. Not that I am lazy but that I am busy with many groups and if you see a peer in need please step in to help them out as you may be able to reply quicker than me.
Now we have established communication channels I like to make my students feel welcomed and connected with me throughout their studies. Where possible I leave verbal feedback as an audio file either by Read and Write voice note or Mote. I encourage my learners to do the same. Read and Write gives 1 minute and Mote is 30 seconds in the free version. It's a challenge to be personal and succinct in giving feedback verbally.
Every now and then I like to do a video update about things they might want to be thinking about. When to start revising, recapping a topic that was a while ago, or social information like Christmas activities. I record a Screencastify for less than 5 minutes on the free version and share it with my students. If I have marked a series of papers I like to record a video of me modelling the most common answers that were incorrect and again share that video. This helps me stay connected to my learners. Once they have their marked papers back I would ask them to do a Flipgrid about what would they like to tell themselves if they were to sit the assessment again.
Finally in every task, hyperdoc, choice board I insert my bitmoji doing a crazy thing to show my learners it is me, I created this work for them and I want them to do well.
I hope you manage to stay connected with your learners digitally too.
