Engagement in a Virtual Learning Environment BY MICHELE E. EATON/School Administrator, February 2022

Michele Eaton (left), who directs an online academy in Warren Township, Ind., says increasing teacher presence will lead to better engagement by virtual learners. PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHELE EATON

Maintaining high levels of student engagement and motivation are important in any learning environment, but it is of critical importance in an online classroom.

When students are learning from a distance, leaders, teachers, and support staff must all work together to ensure students not only attend class but are engaged in meaningful learning. This can feel like a challenge.

While online learning may feel new to many of us, virtual education itself is not new. Successful online programs and schools have been tackling this challenge for years, and there are several strategies that any online program or classroom can use to increase student attendance and learner engagement.

Careful Planning

One of the most significant steps school or district leadership can do to ensure student engagement and success is careful, proactive planning. It should be easy and efficient for families and students to get started in a remote program. The more difficult things seem for the learners at the beginning, the more likely you are to see engagement issues right from the start.

Clear communication about the program expectations, equitable access to technology and connectivity, and a strong vision for success should be present from the beginning. The Digital Learning Collaborative has some of my favorite resources for districts and schools looking to build or grow their online programs.

Physical Location

At Warren Online Academy, which this year enrolls about 800 students in full-time online learning, an important part of the planning process for us was thinking about the physical space. That might sound counterintuitive for a virtual program, but we knew that having a brick-and-mortar school building would provide us with many options. Those possibilities could be tied to ensuring student engagement, among other things.

Having a location for our staff to work with classroom space available meant that we could provide hybrid options for the students who would benefit most from them. We have students placed into a hybrid pathway and other students who can opt in or out of a hybrid model (as long as they are on pace and finding success). All students regardless of virtual or blended model participation are welcome to the building for extra support, special events and more.

We have found that leveraging our physical location strategically has allowed us to give students and families the flexibility they seek from an online program while building in the opportunities for in-person supports as needed. Creating a sense of community and belonging is imperative for maintaining student engagement, and while that is not something that is created overnight, having a location where students, families and staff can gather certainly can help.

Hiring and Staffing

Another key is the hiring process. At Warren Online Academy, I am so fortunate to work with great teachers. When we began operations in the fall, our staff brought a wide range of experiences in online learning. Some had been working in the field for several years, while others only knew emergency remote learning due to the pandemic.

When it comes to teaching in a way that is engaging for students, a teacher’s online learning experience was less important than their beliefs about virtual education itself. The most important question I asked in the interview process of each of our staff members was “Do you believe online learning can be just as effective as face-to-face instruction? Why or why not?” That question helped me to identify instructors who not only believed in the work we were doing but believed we could always improve, that we could reach all of our students. This has made all the difference in our success with keeping students motivated and on pace.

At our program, we also were strategic in the positions we hired for. In addition to full-time, highly qualified teachers, we also were intentional in creating other support roles focused on engagement, such as these:

»Special education and English learner educators to provide the support services to ensure all of our students find success;

»Multiple counselors as an additional layer of support to help our students stay on track;

»An online success coach who focuses her work on both teacher support and student engagement specifically, meeting with students to help them develop the self-regulatory skills needed to be successful online;

»Interventionists to help with small-group instruction, creating a personalized, engaging experience for students; and

»Instructional assistants to support classroom instruction and meet with small groups of students.

Because we knew from the beginning that engagement of students would directly correlate with their academic success, we designed the staffing to proactively address those needs.

Tiered Supports

It is not enough to simply have the staff available to address student support needs. With so many people at hand to work with students, we developed a tiered engagement supports system. We identified four ways that students may disengage from their learning online:

»Failing to log in;

»Falling behind the pace or missing work;

»Submitting poor quality work; and

»Refusing to interact while logged in.

Collectively, we came up with a list of interventions to implement when we noticed a student was disengaged. These included Tier 1 or whole-class strategies (often aligned with our Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports, or PBIS system). We also focused on Tier 2 supports that could be strategically used with individual students.

Once that was in place, we created engagement protocols that were documented. Teachers would begin with the Tier 1 and 2 interventions. Some included one-on-one meetings, peer mentors, learning contracts and scheduled in-person time or online office hours. If lack of engagement persisted, counselors or the online success coach were brought in to provide some additional support, engage with families and even go on home visits.

Professional Learning

Teaching and learning look different in a digital space. To ensure student success, regular, strategic professional learning and coaching around online learning is important for the growth of staff and students.

Over the last decade of my career in online and blended learning, I have worked to amplify personalized learning within an online environment. When students take ownership of their learning, we can see high levels of engagement and motivation and subsequently high levels of academic success. For that reason, the professional learning model I have focused on has always also been personalized for the staff.

For an example of what this personalized professional learning can look like, check out my 2017 article in EdSurge, “Want to Give Students More Voice and Choice? Start with Teachers.” It provides details on how a virtual school staff worked together to design a highly personalized and engaging professional development model to serve remote students.

Flexible Mindset

Ultimately though, one of the best things school or district leadership can do to ensure they develop an online program where students are actively engaged is to measure that engagement and maintain a flexible mindset. A colleague who teaches in New Palestine, Ind., and is president-elect of Indiana Connected Educators, Chris Young, speaks often about how educators should “measure what matters” in terms of student engagement because we “manage what we measure.”

Determine early what your metrics for successful learner engagement will be and track those data (attendance, participation in live classes, interactions in asynchronous instruction, affective data, etc.). Celebrate the wins with your staff, students and families, but also be ready to identify what isn’t working and get rid of it.

I love online learning because of its flexibility. I love that it provides a nontraditional path to success for students. As a school leader, I want to embrace those things in my own work as well. When we are intentional about measuring student motivation and engagement, we can look critically at what is working and amplify that while also abandoning what isn’t working.

MICHELE EATON is director of the Warren Online Academy in Indianapolis, Ind.