Teacher toolkit: Engagement Tools for the Classroom Revealed!

by Freedom World Team on May 15, 2024 11:19:05 AM

Getting students to actively participate in lessons is one of the biggest challenges educators face, both in schools and universities. This is especially true for larger classes or virtual classrooms. This blog explores how blockchain technology and NFTs can be helpful engagement tools for the classroom.

Why Aren’t Students Participating in Class?

There are many common factors that contribute to low engagement from students, regardless of the subject or age group you’re teaching. These include:

Lack of motivation: The content of your lessons can directly impact your students' interest in the class. Pacing and timing are also crucial for maintaining their attention. However, low engagement can stem from a lack of self-confidence and motivation. Students may feel nervous about interacting with professors or fear embarrassment in front of their peers.
Different learning methods: Each student has a unique learning style, and not everyone thrives in traditional lessons. Many of your students may not learn effectively through lectures but prefer hands-on, project-based learning.
Lack of community: Students may not have the opportunity to get to know each other before joining a class, especially in virtual or hybrid learning environments. This can lead to feelings of isolation and loneliness, dampening students' interest in your class. The absence of healthy competition and collaborative learning can diminish engagement before the class even begins.
Difficulty in adopting engagement tools for the classroom. Integrating effective classroom activities and teaching styles with the right technology can be challenging, but it can be the first step in increasing student engagement. Whether you’re teaching in person or leading a virtual class, the right classroom engagement tools can help enhance your interactions with your students.

Build a Classroom Where Everyone Contributes

The right technology can transform your classroom into a space where students can learn, collaborate with classmates, and communicate comfortably with you as their educator. With so many options available, where should you start?

Support Interactive Learning

A good way to split up a long lesson or lecture is to run interactive, in-class quizzes. These quizzes help test knowledge while providing an activity to keep students engaged. Incentivize your students by rewarding them with specially created NFTs for each quiz they pass. By introducing a student leaderboard, you can create friendly competition among students, spark conversations, and generate excitement about the next lesson.

Provide Additional Activities to Complete for Extra Credit

Offer students alternative ways of earning a good grade, such as coursework, group projects, or class participation. Traditional methods of forcing student participation, like cold calling, can make your students nervous. Meanwhile, small tasks and group projects can be less daunting.

Take inspiration from flipped learning and provide additional lectures online. More and more educators are adopting this method of teaching by allowing students to digest learning material at home, and completing their coursework in the classroom, where educators can help them solve more challenging problems. You can reward students for completing each lecture with NFTs, with special prizes to students who collect all NFTs. NFTs can also be used to represent progress students make towards their final grade.

Host Online Discussions

Set up a platform with social media integration, so that your students can share insights and connect with their cohort. Social features can also allow students to talk with teaching staff, and overcome any fears of talking to teachers or professors face-to-face during office hours. Surveys, interviews, and assessments can also help measure student satisfaction, and ensure that the teaching material aligns with your students’ needs.

Allow students to collaborate with classmates, mentors, and even other student communities or educational institutions with in-app activities and usage. For example, successful platforms like Sandboxen connect students from around Thailand.

Liven up your Classroom with Freedom World

Energize your classroom and boost student engagement with Freedom World's innovative blockchain-powered system. We offer a secure e-Membership & NFT Certificate platform that tracks achievements and awards points and NFTs for academic excellence, individual triumphs, and community contributions.

Motivate your students further by designing personalized learning journeys with our Missions system, featuring real-world activities with checkpoint challenges. These gamified elements promote active participation, while NFTs serve as both badges of honor and vouchers for exclusive resources. Most importantly, the system creates a lasting record of student accomplishments, building valuable portfolios for their future.

The social features on Freedom World’s platform allow students to participate in discussions, share insights, connect, and seek advice from fellow students or educators. Transform your next lesson and increase in-class participation with Freedom World’s features.

Blockchain technology is constantly evolving and providing new ways to increase student participation in class, and beyond. Sign up for Freedom World and discover how we can help build your engagement tools for the classroom.

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