As part and parcel of new normal to live through the pandemic era, online classes seem to be the most viable and an inevitable practise. For a large part of the world, it is something to be adjusted with and new challenges will follow. Sharing the concern of tutors and educators alike, Centre of Engineering Education, UTM Johor (CEE) held a webinar with Richard M. Felder, Hoechst Celanese Professor Emeritus of Chemical Engineering at N.C. State University and Rebecca Brent, President of Education Designs Inc. at Chapel Hill, North Carolina as the panel to discuss “How To Get Online Students Actively Engaged”.
Held at 8.30am GMT+ the webinar saw 690 participants initially, ending with Q&A session with 730 participants or viewers accessing worldwide particularly from India, Korea and Malawi besides the main audience from host’s country, Malaysia.
Part of the takeaways from the webinar includes doing some activities to grab students’ attention at the beginning of an online class. Rebecca mentioned activities like recalling prior materials, summarising or asking students to formulate a question each will work well to keep them engaged.
She also mentioned leading the students by giving them an idea or clue to the subject of the online session and make them curious and seek answers. This way, they would know the educator is the expert on the subject they’re learning and would pay more attention in the lesson.
On students refusing to participate, Richard told participants to not take it personally. “Don’t be too bothered and move along with the lesson. An effective way to handle non-participating students is to make them know they’re going to be called out individually from time to time during the lesson”.
Learn more by streaming the recorded webinar free of charge here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JgD-SffJrLY
