The end of this school year was unpresedented to say the least. It was my first year teaching high school biology and I had a very difficult time keeping up rigor and balancing grace while grading. Motivation was already an issue with students while we were on-campus and it got even worse when things went online. I'm looking to discuss tips and resources for increasing student motivation in or out of the classroom and also keeping up rigor in both biology and engineering while remote teaching.
Motivaton is always an issue, even without the distance portion of learning. Teaching on Zoom to 30 blank boxes where they wouldn't turn on their microphone or camera was difficult. I encountered the same problem as you and asked my department for some guidance. Several ideas that were given to me:
- Have a theme every day/week to increase participation. (crazy hat and hair day were popular!)
- Shorten assignments to what you really want to assess. Students were far more willing to answer 5 questions as opposed to 10-20.
- Have students own their learning by using inquiry-based projects or project-based learning.
Good luck! Hope these help if we go back to distance learning in the fall.
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