10 Best Practices to Follow When Teaching Kindergarten Online
Teaching Kindergarteners is one of the most challenging jobs out there. This challenge gets elevated to a whole new level when you have to teach kids in tiny boxes on the screen without any control over their concentration, actions or movements.
Virtual teaching comes with its own set of constraints, especially if the teacher and students are well accustomed to an in-classroom environment. Kindergarteners need handholding every step of the way and often, as a teacher, you might feel restricted or helpless.
How do you draw their attention to you? How do you ensure they follow you? How do you make them read? How do you develop qualities such as cooperation and teamwork?
The responsibility is huge because kindergarten is the most formative years of an individual’s life where the seeds of intellectual as well as socio-emotional development are laid.
This post aims at addressing the real issues when teaching kindergarteners online and what best practices to follow as a teacher to ensure we attain maximum learning outcomes through online mode of learning and teaching.
So, here we go.
1. Organise a Virtual Parent Teacher Meet
Before you start online classes, make an effort to organise a virtual meet between you and parents. Introducing yourself to them and getting to know them is the first step towards building a strong community. You can plan ice breaking activities to lighten up the environment so everyone feels comfortable expressing themselves and contributing to the meeting.
Important factors that should be covered during this meet are:
- Sharing tools, techniques and frameworks you would be using
- Setting expectations
- Daily schedule
- Sharing behaviour management guidelines
- Informing the parents about your availability and how to contact you
- Sharing how birthdays and other important days would be celebrated
- Walkthrough of the learning platform and usage guidelines
2. Make Parents Your Partners
Seek active involvement of parents. Make them your partners. Regular communication to share progress and guidance on how to support their little one with day-to-day lessons would ensure maximum learning. Most parents would be more than happy to be actively involved in teaching and shaping their child’s view of the world.
3. Involve Household Items to Teach
Kindergarteners will enjoy, relate and retain the lessons and concepts better if you use items that could be easily found in and around their house. For example, when teaching letters of the alphabet you could ask them to show an item in their house that begins with a particular letter. The same could be applied when teaching new words or even subjects such as Mathematics and Science.
4. Schedule Timely Breaks
Kids have an attention span of less than 15 minutes. Schedule regular snack breaks or game breaks to keep them engaged and entertained. Other activities that could be organised during breaks could be Read alouds, Pictionary, Charades, Show and Tell, Singing, and so on. Also, try to schedule classes during the same time window every day. This becomes easy to remember for parents and the child develops a routine.
5. Use Same Location/Background
Try to sit at the same location when taking classes or use the same background. That way your students stay focused on you and not get distracted by background elements. Also, try and eliminate unnecessary elements or distractions from your background.
6. Record Your Classes
Make it a regular practice to record and upload live class recordings. This can be accessed by parents for revision as well as by students who were not present during the class.
7. Run Trials with Peers
When planning lesson delivery, exercises, quizzes or any activity, it’s recommended to have a trial run with your peers to be doubly sure of the outcome of these activities. Some activities work well only in an in-classroom setting while others could be seamlessly conducted online. This would also allow you to brainstorm and exchange new ideas on lesson plans and delivery.
8. Establish Class Code of Conduct
While it’s very difficult to control behaviours of kids, setting a few basic rules of conduct might come in handy for class management. For example, raising a hand before talking, dressing appropriately, no eating during class, being polite, no playing with toys etc. would be helpful. Do make it a point to communicate the same with parents.
9. Place Quality above Quantity
Instead of trying to accommodate 4-5 different activities during a session, plan on 2 activities that are meaningful and more impactful. Hustling through the class may seem like getting a lot done, but retention could only be ensured with tasks that are slow and engaging.
10. Schedule Calls to Touch Base
Every small or big achievement of your student warrants a pat on the back. Make time to schedule one-on-one calls with your students and their parents, bond with them and let them show you their homework, assignments or projects. Celebrate their progress along with them. Your words of encouragement would mean a lot to them.
11. Bonus Point - Don’t Expect Perfection!
Virtual teaching means each of your students is located in a different environment. There would be distractions and limitations that you as a teacher, won’t have much control over. It’s better to expect them, accept them, and plan for them in the best way possible.
Don’t aim for perfection, aim for engaged learning.
Here’s wishing all kindergarten teachers for a fantastic year ahead. You have been doing an absolutely brilliant job, a job that’s by no means easy. Kudos to each one of you!!!
Don’t aim for perfection, aim for engaged learning.
Here’s wishing all kindergarten teachers for a fantastic year ahead. You have been doing an absolutely brilliant job, a job that’s by no means easy. Kudos to each one of you!!!
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