What We Learned From 500+ Tutors Using Gamified Lessons

Picture this: you are about to start another online class on Zoom. As your students pop into the meeting, a sea of muted microphones and blank video feeds greets you. You take a deep breath and try to engage them with questions, but the only response is the echo of your voice. Sixty minutes feel like an eternity as you navigate through the student silence. Finally, with a heavy sigh, frustration lingers as you close the laptop, pondering, "How can I better engage my students?”

Does this frustration sound familiar? Many online educators, myself included, have grappled with solutions for student disengagement. In this blog, drawing from my seven years of online teaching experience and a Master of Education from Harvard, I’ll provide 11 top strategies to effectively engage your learners and transform your virtual classroom.

1. Start Your Class with a Warm-Up Activity

First, before delving into the main lesson, consider kicking off each session with a fun warm-up activity. It serves as an engaging transition into the lesson, allowing students to activate their minds and participate actively from the very start.

Example: This can range from a quick trivia question related to the upcoming lesson or a thought-provoking prompt that encourages students to share their opinions. Wordwall provides a wide range of mini-games that you can use as warm-up activities to get your students immersed in the learning experience.

2. Leverage Gamified Polls and Quizzes

To truly spice up student engagement, it’s essential to break the one-sided lecture format and seamlessly integrate interactive activities like live polls and quizzes into your online classes.

Example: You can use gamified quizzes like Kahoot, Quizizz, or Blooket to enable real-time interaction. These platforms not only allow for immediate engagement but also provide instantaneous feedback. With features like timed questions, points, and leaderboard, gamified quizzes transform the learning process into an exciting and competitive experience, making them excellent gamification ideas for virtual classes.

3. Use Collaborative Virtual Whiteboards

Another powerful interactive tool you can use is collaborative virtual whiteboards like Miro or Google Jamboard. These platforms enable real-time brainstorming, problem-solving, and dynamic group activities, fostering a genuine sense of shared learning in your digital classroom.

Example: You can encourage students to share their thoughts by sticking virtual post-it notes on the whiteboard in response to a specific question related to your lesson. This way, everyone gets a chance to express themselves, and it transforms the virtual classroom into a space where ideas can flow smoothly and we can all build upon each other's insights.

4. Ask Students to Annotate on Your Screen

Encourage direct student interaction by allowing them to annotate on your shared screen. This hands-on approach fosters active participation and makes the learning experience more interactive. Just be cautious of those virtual doodlers—though their creativity might be amusing, it's best to set some clear ground rules for respectful annotation!

Example: You can prompt your students to circle elements they find intriguing, underline important details, or even draw connections between different elements on your slides or PDF document.

5. Reward Students for Active Engagement

Recognize and reward students for their active participation. When students feel their efforts are genuinely appreciated, they're much more likely to remain engaged and dedicated throughout the course.

Example: This could involve awarding virtual badges, points, or maintaining a leaderboard showcasing the most engaged students. However, it's equally crucial to pay attention to students lower on the leaderboard. You can actively involve them by inviting them to answer questions and rewarding their contributions to make them feel acknowledged and valued.

6. Include Group Work and Collaboration

Students are more likely to stay engaged when they feel connected to their peers. You can build a strong sense of community by incorporating group work and collaborative projects. Assign tasks that specifically require teamwork and mutual effort.

Example: For instance, you can organize team debates where students are assigned to different breakout rooms to discuss and deliberate on specific topics. This boosts online class participation and fosters teamwork.

7. Promote Friendly Peer Competition

Create a healthy competitive environment by organizing quizzes or challenges that encourage students to compete with their peers. This is a core aspect of successful gamification in education.

Example: Instead of just an individual leaderboard, you can also consider a team leaderboard where students’ engagement and efforts contribute to their own teams' scores. This approach not only incentivizes teamwork but also introduces an element of friendly competition, significantly enhancing overall class engagement.

8. Connect Learning to Real-World Application

When students clearly see the practical relevance of learning to real-world applications, it powerfully sparks their motivation to learn. You can share compelling case studies, vivid examples, or inspiring success stories that illustrate how the concepts learned in class are applied in various real-world scenarios.

Example: For a geometry class, instead of solely teaching geometric concepts, you can take your students to dive into real-world applications—like how architects use shapes, formulas, and angles to craft beautiful and strong buildings. Connecting geometry to the art of architecture helps students see how it's more than just classroom math—it's the blueprint for creating amazing structures in the real world.

9. Incorporate Learning Material That Tackles Students’ Interests

Students are significantly more likely to stay engaged when the learning material directly addresses their personal interests and passions. Incorporate relevant content that resonates with their passions, whether it’s Harry Potter or Minecraft.

Example: If it's a language lesson, you can use popular phrases from their favorite movie or incorporate dialogue from characters they love to teach new vocabulary or grammar. By including elements from their favourite books, games, or movies in the class, you can create a bridge between the subject matter and the students' intrinsic motivations, fostering a deeper and more enduring engagement with the material. This is a key strategy for ways to make Zoom classes fun.

10. Infuse Energy and Enthusiasm into Your Teaching

Think back to your own school days—those moments when you struggled to stay awake in class. Chances are, those teachers spoke in a monotone, right? Engaging students is all about bringing authentic energy and passion into your teaching. When you infuse enthusiasm into your lessons, it becomes contagious, sparking a genuine interest among students. So, ditch the monotony!

Example: Use varied vocal tones, expressive facial expressions, and dynamic gestures to convey your excitement about the subject matter! This boosts teaching efficiency and creates a vibrant live online learning environment.

11. Make Friends with Your Students

Lastly, a strong student-teacher relationship is ultimately crucial in fostering students’ learning motivation. When students see you not just as a teacher but as a relatable friend, they're much more likely to stay engaged in your class and feel comfortable participating.

Example: At the beginning or end of your class, you can talk about their lives and share mutual interests—whether it's playing the same video game or being fans of the same anime. You can even send your students relevant resources related to your common interests after the class to strengthen your friendship and build rapport.

Conclusion: Funclass – Your Partner for Enhanced Online Engagement

And there you have it—11 effective ways to engage your students and elevate their online learning experience. Funclass, in particular, is built specifically for achieving this goal. It provides online teachers with all the handy interactive tools mentioned above like embedded gamified quizzes, a collaborative whiteboard, dynamic leaderboard, exciting rewards, badges, and quests to maximize your student engagement. Looking for more platforms and tools that can help you implement these strategies? Discover the best free resources for online teaching in our latest blog post.

Try Funclass for free to see how Funclass + Zoom will transform your online classes and help you boost student engagement!