Using Tech to Enhance Personal Connections

In today’s episode, we'll explore three ways that you can leverage technology to increase personal connections, collaboration, and relationship building in your classroom. Visit AVID Open Access to learn more.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01 Welcome to Tech Talk for Teachers. I'm your host, Paul Beckermann.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 0:05 Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. Check it out. What's in the toolkit? Check it out.

Paul Beckermann 0:16 The topic of today's episode is using tech to enhance personal connections. At first glance, the topic of this episode might seem counterintuitive. After all, aren't students spending too much time on technology already? They're constantly on their phones, gaming, and carrying around Chromebooks at school. While it's true that students of this generation do spend more time interfacing with technology than students of the past, that doesn't mean relationships and personal connections are incompatible with tech use. What it does mean, however, is that we need to be thoughtful and intentional about how we structure screen time in our classrooms. When done well, the use of technology at school can actually enhance personal connections, collaboration, and relationship building. Let's take a look at three ways that this can be done.

Transition Music with Rena's Children 1:06 Here are your three, here are your three tip. Here are your three tips.

Paul Beckermann 1:12 Number one, use tech to learn about each other. I'm not suggesting that all interactions should be virtual. However, starting with virtual sharing can open doors to better and more connected face-to-face communication. When I think about the start of the school year, I find that when students first arrive, they're more reserved. Most of them are trying to get a feel for the classroom culture and the personalities of their teacher and classmates. They want to know if this is a safe place.

Beginning with virtual sharing can help break the ice. For instance, to help you get to know your students, you might begin with a digital get-to-know-you survey. You can have each student submit a survey that includes interests, hobbies, family background, goals, dreams, concerns, and maybe a section about how they learn best, things they want you to know about them, or what they're most hoping to get from the class.

Having this information can give you, the teacher, a much better feel for the personality of the room. Similarly, you could have students engage in an online discussion forum where they introduce themselves to their classmates. Doing this online can give students more time to process their words than if they were put on the spot in front of their peers in the physical room. To make this a safe space, you can outline basic courtesy and commenting rules to ensure students are kind in responses to classmate posts. Some platforms also let you monitor and review posts before they go live in the discussion thread. If you're concerned that students may be unkind, this is a good option.

While this virtual sharing can be a great way to get started, we also want students to connect in person. One way to facilitate this is to use the virtual responses you've gathered to connect students with similar interests. Maybe you put them in small groups together and give them a common task, like creating a group T-shirt design or writing a group cheer. The common interests can help them connect, and the shared activity can give them a common purpose, which can tie them together even more.

Another follow-up activity could be to create a Kahoot or a Quizlet Live activity that quizzes the class on student interests and backgrounds that you gathered with the survey. Quizlet Live is a fun way to make this an interactive and interdependent group experience, since each participant has some of the answers. The team needs to rely on all members in the group to answer the questions. Students love this, and it can bring a positive energy to getting to know each other. It also sends the signal that every student is valued because every student is included in the set of quiz questions.

Number two, technology can provide time for the teacher to meet with individual or small groups of students. While building classroom community can be done through the class activities I've already described, real relationships of trust are often built one-on-one or in small groups. Thoughtful use of technology can help here too, by designing lessons that leverage technology to allow students to learn independently or with peers. You, the teacher, can be freed up to meet and connect with students.

One way this can happen is if students are working independently or in groups. This work can be guided by virtual resources and directions, which frees you up to circulate through the room. Teachers have done this for years while students are working on homework or practice activities. Technology takes this a step further by providing more scaffolding and better support resources to guide the learning. Embedding videos where you explain directions can reduce the number of questions students have. Utilizing self-paced courses, a blended learning playlist, or an artificial intelligence chatbot can guide students through the learning activity without your direct presence.

Of course, the power of all this is that by empowering students to work more independently, you are freed up to circulate and connect with students. Maybe you join a group or kneel down by a student desk to check in about their progress or to see how their day is going. As you do this, I'd encourage you to be intentional about connecting with every student. With large classes, it's easy to miss some students, especially the quiet ones. Having a checklist can be helpful to track who you've met with.

Other than circulating the room to meet with your students, you can also schedule more formal conferences, perhaps at your teacher desk or at a table in the room. Again, if technology is used to help keep the majority of the students engaged and on track, it frees you up to conduct these learning and check-in conferences. Writing teachers have done this for years. As students are working on their drafts, the teachers call up students to their desk to review the writing in a one-on-one conference. This approach can be extended to any subject area and can give students a safe place to ask questions and a teacher a chance to assess where the student is at.

Another option is to use the blended learning approach of station rotation. With this approach, you can build a teacher station into the rotation, which gives you a structured opportunity to meet with groups of students for more personalized instruction, for check-ins, and even re-teaching. This works with any age of students. In fact, I've used it with teachers during staff training days. Everyone appreciates the personal connection. It allows people to feel seen and heard, and provides the teacher or facilitator with invaluable learner insights.

Number three, have students create together. Too often, technology is seen and used as a solitary activity. This overlooks one of the most powerful uses of technology in the classroom, collaborative creation. In fact, this might be my favorite use of technology with students. Put them in pairs or small groups and give them an assignment that requires them to create something with technology.

Maybe they're tasked with creating a video explaining a curricular concept, or perhaps they need to record a newscast addressing a controversial issue related to the course content. In math or science class, they could collaboratively work through a virtual simulation or use technology to teach a concept. I think of this as my instructional super strategy. Not only do students love this because it's engaging, hands-on, and mentally stimulating, but it also hits all of the four Cs: collaboration, communication, creativity, and critical thinking.

Students must communicate in order to collaboratively accomplish a group task. If the task is designed well, it should also challenge them to solve a problem which involves critical thinking and creativity. These are key life skills that we want our students to develop, and we can build them into powerful, tech-filled learning experiences. With this approach, students are not staring individually into a screen for long periods of time. They're actually spending the majority of their time interacting with each other to solve a problem or complete a task. The technology becomes a means for them to complete a challenge.

They might use tech to conduct research. They could discuss the best approach for using a tech tool to build out a final product. They could review each other's work and provide feedback. You could even have them take it a step further and share their work with the class. This brings in presentation and additional communication skills. The benefits and options are almost limitless with this approach, and for the most part, students really like it.

I hope I've made the point that the use of technology does not have to be a solitary experience. In fact, I believe it can and should be used to bring people closer together. Education is an inherently human experience, and we don't want to lose that. At the same time, technology is an integral part of our world. We owe it to our students to help them learn how to use these tools productively and also to help them navigate an increasingly digital society in a way that is human and personal.

If we plan carefully, we can make sure that tech skills and human interaction work together in a very positive and productive way for both our classrooms and our students. To learn more about today's topic and explore other free resources, visit avidopenaccess.org. Specifically, I encourage you to check out the article collections "Empower Students Through Creativity and Choice" and "Explore Blended Learning Strategies". And of course, be sure to join Rena, Winston, and me every Wednesday for our full-length podcast, Unpacking Education, where we're joined by exceptional guests and explore education topics that are important to you. Thanks for listening. Take care and thanks for all you do. You make a difference.