Student to Student Interaction in Online Classes

With better flexibility, convenience, comfort, and cost-effectiveness provided, we have been witnessing a transition from conventional teaching methods to online teaching platforms. We often hear that for effective online teaching, the interaction between teachers and students is important. In online classes, sometimes learning becomes challenging and students feel isolated too. 

To overcome this problem, and enhance learning outcomes, student-to-student interaction online is equally significant. This can be slightly rigid but not impossible. While planning about course selling, educators should think of ways to build an online community and interaction among the learners. Let us discuss some tips that can be followed in this regard. 

Benefits of student-to-student interaction in online classes 

• Enhance the quality of live classes 

Better the quality of live classes, the greater the success rate of the online course. Only teachers speaking in the class and students simply sitting as they mere pass can lead to monotonous teaching, lack of competition, and engagement. However, when students interact with each other, class engagement increases. Students become more participatory and competitive. This makes the whole live session enthusiastic and full of active learning. 

• Better learning outcomes

The more interaction among students, the more knowledge is shared and gained. When students interact with one another, they share ideas, opinions, perspectives, and answers. The correct answer given by one let others learn it too. Or different solutions given by students on a single academic problem also broaden their knowledge. Teachers can also listen to the students actively and later give suggestions and feedback for improvement. This enhances students’ learning outcomes and online class performance. 

• Helps to improve online teaching practices 

By letting students interact with each other via academic activities, teachers can check the learners’ understanding level and where they are lagging. The quality answers and active class participation will ensure that the current teaching practices are successful. And if you find that students are off track, necessary steps should be taken. This will help in improving the teaching practices,  making online classes more valuable and impactful. 

How to foster interactions among students in online classes 

1. Online discussions

Online discussions are quite effective to increase student interaction with each other. If the number of students is more, divide your class into a few small groups. Give each group an interesting and understandable topic. And ask them to discuss it. One by one student will share their ideas, views, and knowledge on the topic. The agreements, approvals, disagreements, and cross-questioning in online group discussions will increase student-to-student interactions. 

2. Open other communication channels 

With the increase in social media applications, now a student to student interaction is no longer limited to the classroom. In an online class, teachers need to cover the curriculum and not all time can be given to given student interactions as time constraints are also there. Teachers should open other communication channels for students.

 For example, you can prepare a WhatsApp group of all students. Here you can send group activities that students can complete together. Here students can help each other with doubts too. This will also develop a sense of community and boost students’ interest in learning. Make sure to set behavioral and social guidelines that all students must follow. Keep the groups academically-oriented only.

3. Peer review or feedback

For how to sell courses online effectively, you need to plan for the activities that foster student interactions. To do so you can go for peer review. For example, conduct a class test, quiz, or other participatory activities. The way you give feedback to students on how they performed, how effectively they scored, and what more can be done for improvement, similarly ask students to do it for each other. You can ask students to rate each other’s performance. The feedback exchange can be both written and vocal. You can ask students to type suggestions for each other in the chat box too. 

4. Let learners become educators

Another method by which student-to-student interaction can be enhanced is a switch in position. For a particular class or session let students become educators. Ask students to come prepared and deliver a lecture to the whole class.

 The student who becomes the teacher, you can tell him or her to ask questions to the rest of the class. Similarly, ask students to ask their doubts to the teacher of that particular class. This can be a great idea in building an online community, making students active and more interactive with each other.

Conclusion

For effective online teaching and learning, having student-to-student interactions is very important. By reading the above-mentioned information we can make out its importance. We also discussed a few tips that can be followed to improve students’ interaction with each other in online classes. It will enhance both teaching and learning outcomes.