Tips to Better Engage Homeschooling Students Using LMS

Why a Learning Management System is Important in Today’s World

According to Mr. Glass, a learning management system (LMS) is one of the most comprehensive solutions edtech has to offer, because:

– it allows teachers to create various types of learning materials (text, images, audio, video, etc.) and make these accessible to differently-abled students through screen readers, the use of captions on videos, skip-to-content links, keyboard shortcuts, etc.

– it gives a bird’s eye view of all students’ progress, which helps teachers identify where a student or another might struggle with the learning content and offer personalized and on-time feedback.

– it can easily include gamification elements in stand-alone learning activities or throughout an entire online course, encouraging more interaction and competition between students, no matter where they are.

– it removes time barriers that are insurmountable in the traditional classroom; with asynchronous courses, students can adapt the pace of moving through online modules and take ownership over their learning journey.

All these things—accessing learning materials that are easy to go through, getting personalized support, engaging in learning as they do in games, and exploring lessons at their own pace—form the basis of student engagement in online education.

How LMS Should Promote and Champion an Effective Educational Program

In order to better engage homeschooling students on an LMS, an effective educational program will integrate the positive potential of remote learning. Arash Fayz, Executive Director of LA Tutors 123 claims that flexibility, easy organization, sequences for students to follow are just some of the characteristics of an efficient learning platform. These, of course, while mitigating the potential lack of engagement by retaining some face-to-face learning (even if it is over Zoom) and using interactive or virtual activities to keep students engaged.

Since students are missing out on class time and may be starved for social interaction, introducing more group projects or discussions in breakout rooms will help students stay engaged and are worth implementing even if they may be less efficient for covering material. Students are also going to have questions about or difficulties navigating online platforms so giving them adequate tech support and feedback on assignments is also crucial.

Fayz adds the importance of checking in on students frequently to make sure they are getting as much out of their lessons as possible and understand what they need to be doing with school time that was previously in-person and much more structured. Based on experience, one complaint that I have seen from students about their learning platforms is that they do not allow them to work out of sequence or on multiple projects at once. For example, one student had to complete and turn in each English assignment before he could start his next assignment.

In practice, that meant that, rather than making flashcards and studying over the course of a week, he had to cram for a vocabulary quiz all at once before he could begin an essay, when the more logical workflow would have involved spreading out the vocabulary studying and moving onto the essay before he had to take a quiz he was not ready for.

Why It is Still Vital to Cultivate a Healthy Physical Wellbeing

Interactive Health Technologies (IHT) gives homeschooling students online access to staying physically and emotionally healthy, motivated, accountable by connecting educational-specific heart rate monitors with school LMS. This comes from IHT Founder and President, Jen Ohlson.

Physical education (PE) classes across the country have thrived as virtual learning becomes the new normal. The solution has made PE a COVID-19 savior subject amidst endless screen time and is offering a glimpse into the future in how traditional classes may transform as a way to keep students excited, engaged and accountable for their physical education credit, keep them physical fit, and provide real-time feedback to help students self-regulate their emotions, such as stress and anxiety.

IHT has developed an online program to meet the needs of students and their busy schedules, while ensuring standards and curriculum rigor are being met. Students get to choose their activities and that is not something they can do in a traditional PE class.

In online learning with the monitors and software, kids can enjoy doing what they like to do, when they want to do it. Playing basketball, dancing, or running the dog for PE? Yes, if that is what you want to do.

Students have even more access to personalized instruction, both from the teacher and from the heart rate monitors than they get in school. We designed the technology to ensure that the teacher is still at the heart of the learning process but at the same time we want to empower each student to individually take ownership of their physical and emotional health at home.

The goal is to meet students where they are within their schedule, while providing the rigor, accountability and the data schools require by connecting to LMS.

Conclusion

To wrap everything up, Graham Glass parting words put things in perspective. He puts a spotlight on the fact that educators can create next-level online learning experiences with a school LMS and keep students engaged at every step of their learning process. However, knowing how to make the most of technology and building human rapport with students online are prerequisites to great results.