Challenge – Online lessons sometimes can descend into chaos just because of the noise in the virtual classroom. It helps to have activities such as this to help learners learn a little on their own. This can be used as a warmer or cooler activity also.
Tools Used – Zoom , Google, WhatsApp
Activity Outline
In this exercise students were asked to work individually and find information on a particualar topic as a lesson warmer. This exercise helped to reinforce scanning abilities as they had to look for very specific information. As it was done with lower level learners it kept controlled, however such an activty could be made more challenging and exciting for higher level learners. One aspect which learners enjoyed was the opportunity to work on their own on a task, much like in a real classroom.
Instructions
Lesson:
1 – Show learners photos of the topic you are about to teach. For example, for a lesson on housing, show them a picture of the smallest house in Britain and elicit responses.
2 – Instruct them to find out more details with pointed questions to help them scan for information—What’s the speciality of the house? Where is it located? What is the size? Any other interesting information.
3 – Write all of these questions on the whiteboard and tell them they have 10 minutes.
4 – Open the breakout rooms and assign them each a breakout room, set the timer (5-10) minutes. Alternatively, keep students in the main room and allow them to turn off cameras/microphones as they are completing the quest.
5 – After reconvening in the main room, nominate learners to present their findings
Online Refugee Education Toolkit 