By: Albert Tablan – September 10, 2020
Every child has different learning capacities. The individual character also plays a significant role in a child’s motivation to learn as well as their perception of education and learning. Coincidentally, the current global health emergency has paved the way for online instruction, with stay-at-home and quarantine directive closing schools globally.
This shift to online learning may come as a daunting task for parents and teachers, most importantly, to learners. Teachers who advocate free play learning or performance-based strategies may find the technique no longer applicable. Students had to adjust in migrating from the classroom setting to learning-curated environments. For parents, procuring the necessary tools and equipment for online learning are an added expenditure.
Online learning is fun, yet often, when learners aren’t motivated, it might end up tedious and repetitive when done regularly.
To help you get over such a stumbling block, below are validated ideas and techniques to encourage your child’s interest in online learning. Impose them appropriately, and you’ll see the excitement of learning uncovered in your child.
1. Allow Your Child To Be In Control
Most of the time, school is associated with order, control, and authority. Yet, children tend to refrain from learning whenever they feel constrained or getting out of control.
Guiding them along the learning cycle is vital but encouraging children to control their means and learning ways is just as essential. Particularly, with online learning, allow your children to have personal insights about their learning decisions. A reasonable way to do so is by setting several options or alternatives for your children to choose from.
It will also work best if you give children the freedom to undertake their own choice of learning activities. The greater flexibility you give your child, the more involved and inspired they get to learn regardless of what mode it would be.
2. Understand The Expectation For Online Learning
With developing a child’s interest in online learning, most parents and teachers had a misconception to restrict instruction to technical aspects. Although these devices are the primary tool used for learning, mental, emotional, and behavioral development can reach well beyond the screen.
To motivate your child, you should level your expectations of online learning. Take into account that for online education to be successful, there are many factors to be pulled to come together with a productive learning session.
In doing so, your open-mindedness and understanding of online learning are reflected towards your child, thereby developing their desire and love of learning online.
3. Assess The Learning Activities That Fits Best For Your Child
Every child is unique and the same proves true with their learning styles. Your child may enjoy a particular online learning experience and may not cooperate with another online learning style.
Assess your child’s learning style. For instance, does your child perform best with synchronous games and interact with a live online teacher? What methods of learning appear more engaging to your child? Answering these questions are valuable in helping you and your child’s instructor in preparing activities that are best suited to their learning style.
4. Encourage Movement
With online learning, children quickly get bored sitting throughout the session. They would be more motivated to learn if you encourage movement.
Allow break-time for your child to stretch some muscles. Do some essential exercise with your child before every online learning session. Doing so will allow them to have more focus on doing online learning tasks.
In the same manner, some learners learn better and focus on tasks while standing. If that works with your child, try putting your monitor or laptop on an elevated platform.
5. Set Limits To Screen Time
Equally important with mobility is screen time. You should be stringent with how long your child should spend on educational purposes online. Children must adhere to screen time limits, and for older students, they may manage lengthy but controlled screen times than the younger ones.
Setting your limitations may not directly contribute to your child’s increased interest in online learning. However, the restrictions that you initiate creates a fondness in your child that would make them look forward to the next online learning session. Thus, it would be best if you get stringent and consistent with imposing your rules.
6. Provide An Environment Conducive For Learning
Providing an area conducive for your child’s online learning isn’t always straightforward. If they’re left alone, checking in with them becomes complicated and challenging. On the other hand, they can be distracted if they’re at the kitchen table. It becomes even more obstinate whenever the house is packed, and everybody is home.
Reduce distractions if possible, while your child is doing learning tasks. Distractions may include noise, visual disturbances, and clutter. It would be convenient to have a designated workspace viable for your child.
7. Avoid Spoon Feeding—Help Your Child Understand
One of the most apparent online learning motivation tips for parents is to help their children understand—no spoon-feeding shortcuts. How to do this may be a subject for a whole book as it’s interesting how that happens.
Understanding ranges widely from a student to their grade levels and subject matters. Consider a parent of a Grade 2 learner guiding them to finish an essay about their pet and a parent of a Senior High School student helping them with some Physics problem or a Shakespearean sonnet.
The pet essay is a matter of minutes sitting with your child. While with the senior student, it’s likely for the parent to learn alongside their child. Or perhaps the parent learns about the topic first, and revisits it with their child afterward.
Yet, despite the robust effort required to help your child understand contents, it’s just ‘bare minimum’ of the set of things you need to do for your child’s success.
8. Keep In Mind That It’s About The Child, Not Their Work
To some parents, caring more about their child rather than their outputs may be off-putting to remember. It is because there is too much responsibility (on everyone) to take on the challenges of providing quality learning.
Besides, it’s a parental philosophy and a form of discipline that children should follow what they’re told to do.
But if you believe in your child performing the task rather than the tasks representing your child—then don’t force your child into getting everything done. When you insist on religiously doing things, you’re suppressing their motivation towards online learning.
Furthermore, your child’s growth and well-being might be affected, not to mention their talent, curiosity, enthusiasm, and intrinsic motivation.
9. Gamify the Learning
Gamifying your child’s online learning experience relieves learning complexity. Create stages, points, obstacles, clearly defined indicators, etc.
By gamifying learning and rewarding their efforts, kids will begin to develop eagerness in online learning. All these can be made possible through creative thinking and commitment of teachers and parents as collaborators.
Provide direct and constructive feedback, in forms of praises or incentives, every time your child finishes lessons in online learning. Something just as essential as having a checkmark, a sticker, or some stars on your child’s workbook will make a difference in inspiring and motivating them.
Praises and incentives may come in many forms. Types of incentives for children may include: a new toy, wristbands, a treat like ice cream, cookie, or popsicle, etc.
For teens, incentives and acknowledgments may include, extra allowance, exemption from doing the dishes, an online shopping voucher, or a new cell phone (if they’ve achieved something exceptional)
Moreover, teachers could prepare several live and off-line learning opportunities to assist parents.
Online learning is a dynamic environment for students as it would be for parents. Thus, teachers must guide what systems work, and in what areas they need help.
10. Give Your Child A Break
Any online teacher wouldn’t want to frustrate or dismally confuse your child into learning. Teachers also invest hours in making the tutorials engaging and tailoring the lessons that provide their learners with the right level of complexities.
When it gets too hard, or if your kid has reached a point of exhaustion, it’s all right to pause. Allow the learner to have a break. Slowing down the pace is also recommended. This would give your child a chance to ponder the concepts and process the information.
After all, children learn best by learning lessons one at a time instead of pouring the entire competency in one session.
The Wrap Up
Turning every single day into a day of meaningful learning for your child may come across as a bit of a challenge. But if you know the right strings to pull, it is not really that hard.
Motivate your child to discover the fun of online learning, create a learning-friendly environment around him, pose questions, and establish relationships whenever possible. Support them in every step of the way, learn with them if possible, and never forget to slow down when things get daunting.
Turning every day into a day of learning would allow your child to grow the inner drive for learning, whether inside the classroom, at home, online, or anywhere.
Chalkboard guarantees to provide support not only for our learners but their parents as well. We’re guided by the principle that it takes a village to educate a child. With that, it’s our ardent belief that parents’ involvement and support contribute to their child’s practical learning and development as a person.
With our 360-degree approach towards promoting learning, rest assured that we can go hand in hand in achieving our common goals— that is, your child’s success.
