The way that teachers interacted with their students changed drastically during the pandemic. Like in other areas of education, educators had to think of ways to still connect with their students in fully virtual and hybrid formats. In typical years, teachers depended on in-class interactions with their students, even if it just were a 'welcome' and a 'have a good day' at the beginning and end of class. Through finding student communication vital to a good classroom, caring educators came up with ways to get to know their students through the screen.
In a previous post on student participation, I discussed how some teachers would require cameras on during virtual class. I also mentioned how some teachers would do mental health checks during class. These types of methods of student communication helped teachers get a feel for their students based off of small but meaningful connections. No teacher prefers to stare at avatars on a screen rather than actual faces, and by this teachers were able to put names to faces during class as well. In another previous post on instructional technologies, teachers found real-time applications that they could utilize for student feedback (i.e. Padlet). This was another great tool for students to communicate to each other and to the teacher.
Since last March, the importance of good communication has been further instilled in myself. Regularly checking email and messages are vital for quick and useful communication, and I feel as though teachers should prioritize repeated visiting of their emails for student questions, or even find a different means for student-teacher communication outside of school. Even in a typical face-to-face classroom, students will still have questions outside of school, and with the previous year of students utilizing email for questions to teachers, educators should still allow students to reach them through their inbox for questions that cannot wait until class.
Overall, student communication methods were different the past school year from previous years, and by all this I wanted to get the point across that if meaningful connections and communication were made possible through the pandemic, there is no reason why teachers can't be open to some of the same methods in order to get to their students better going forward. Whether it's implementing real-time applications to further get to know students, using mental health checks, or regularly checking email while at home, teachers have the capabilities to foster even greater relationships with students in the post-pandemic era.
Image source: https://www.dreamstime.com/illustration/student-communication.html
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