Engaging Students in Learning Despite Covid-19 Outbreak

Liza Lacandola Narciso

The Covid-19 outbreak has disrupted the face-to-face classes of the students which affected the classroom environment of the learners around the Philippines and similarly, to other countries. This crisis has called for the Department of Education (DepEd) to implement the blended instruction to every school in the Philippines. Students are now studying at the comfort of their own home accompanied by their mobile phones, laptops and/ or personal computers. With this type of learning, students are more prone with disorienting surroundings but are anticipated to go online early in the morning, log in to their classes and listen to their teacher’s discussion through the screen of their selected devices. In addition, students need to participate in the class on a regular basis and from this, arise the responsibility of the teachers in engaging the students in learning despite the Covid-19 outbreak. In order to do this, teachers can utilize different methods in order to engage the students in a meaningful educational process. Instructors can reinforce their communication and interaction with their students as students get more active and interested in a lesson where they are directly engaged to the process. For online classes, teachers may ask their students to open their camera or talk about their day prior to the delivery of the lesson. This can strengthen the engagement of the students in the class. Encouraging students’participation is also one way to engage the students. It allows the students to participate in online discussion while also accomplishing a successful classroom setting.

With the current situation of the education of the students right now, teachers should apply different techniques and strategies to keep the students engaged in the class despite the various distractions present with the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of the distractions that are present in online class, it may be harder for teachers to keep the students engaged with everything that is happening in online class. Due to this, teachers need to strive harder in developing effective means to pique the interest and keep the attention of the students in the class which is comparable with the face-toface classroom. Providing learners with a detailed and well-planned students engagement technique that can be used in the current situation that befall the students, help them to be more involved, participate and be more interested in the classroom discussion which can be an alternative to the face-to-face discussion.

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The author is Teacher III at Sto.Domingo Elementary School