I’m not gonna lie, when I found out that I was going to be teaching virtually, the first thing that popped into my head was, “Whoo hoo!” The second thing that popped int my head was, “what did I just sign up for?” One of my main concerns was being an excellent teacher for my students. In addition to this, I was also concerned because having relationships with my students F2F wasn’t an issue. How was I going to be able to have genuine relationships with my students virtually? We’ve now been in this thing for five months, and I wanted to share 5 Virtual Teaching Relationship Builders with you. These are ones that I have used and still use!
To be honest, establishing genuine relationships virtually wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. There are a few things that I did that I do believe really helped me in this area. I would love to share them with you!
Hold Private Meet the Teacher Meetings
I’ve discussed this in a previous blog. I truly do believe that this is what set the tone and the relationships for the entire school year! Our district set up two Meet The Teacher Meetings for virtual students. I thought that this was great, BUT I knew that I needed to speak to as many of my new families as possible.
To set up individual meetings with my families through Calendly and let me tell you. WOW! This was amazing. It was a lot of work, because if I had followed the districts schedule, conferences would have been finished in under two hours. With my new schedule, I held conferences for twenty minutes a piece, over a two day period.
This was a lot of work on the front end of our virtual learning adventure together, however, now that we’ve been on this journey for 5 months, I can definitely see how this laid the foundation to our classroom and learning environment.
Hold Morning Meeting Sessions
There are so many things I can say about morning meetings! We love our morning meeting time together! We use Distance Learning Social Emotional Learning Daily Check-Ins for our time together. Each morning, one student is in charge of telling us how they are feeling that day. As a class, we then discuss why they are feeling that way, and we check to see how others are feeling as well.
Each day the slides have different activities on them along with an exercise move or a solve the problem. It really gets the students thinking and interacting with me and their classmates. Through these morning message slides, I am able to get to know them on a more personal level. They enjoy our morning discussions and interactions.
Use Google or ZOOM Breakout Rooms!
Our district uses Google. I had been hearing that they were coming out with breakout rooms, and could not wait to implement this in my virtual classroom.
Breakout rooms not only allows students a chance to speak with me in a smaller setting, but it also allows them to know their classmates. You would be surprised to hear that I have students who call each other “best friends” in our virtual class room. I think it is so cute to see them interacting with each other. Their personalities come out and they are able to be a “kid”.
Breakout rooms can’t happen all the time, but I do like to hold them on Monday morning, allowing students to talk about their weekend with their friends, and Friday afternoon.
Put It In The Mail… Or Drive By!
As a teacher, when we are in the classroom, it is easy to give our students little treats and treasures throughout the week or months. Well, teaching virtually does not allow for this luxury. Virtual teachers have to be creative with their gift and incentive giving.
This past year, I decided that I would give my students “Thankful” gifts for Thanksgiving as well as Christmas gifts for the holidays. Well after I packaged my Thanksgiving gifts (candy, stickers, encouraging note), and mailed them off for a whopping $87.65, I decided that their Christmas gifts would be in the form of a card and anything that could lay flat in an envelope.
What I Came Up With!
The Christmas gift that I came up with, that did not break the bank was perfect for my kiddos. I was scrolling through IG one night and came across @Shakirajanise’s instagram page! She had a Flat Teacher elf gift that she was giving to her kiddos, and so I went ahead and created one for my kiddos!
The Flat teacher includes a bitmoji of myself, along with a board of activities that they can do with “me”. They then take pictures of their completed activity and send it to me to see! The festivities have already started, and the pictures are coming in! I am loving this chance to see them during our break! You can find the Flat Teacher activity in Shakira’s Teachers Pay Teacher’s Store!
Along with our Flat Teacher, I also gave students a bonus points coupon for any activity that they would like to have extra points on. Since I am teaching virtually, I do have an expiration date on these coupons. It will just help me to keep track of who has used one and to have a cut off on the coupon.
You can find these coupons along with my Christmas No Homework Coupons over at my Teachers Pay Teachers Store or my Shopify Store!
Create Virtual Awards!
Our virtual awards are probably the highlight of the week!
Every Friday at 2:00 my kiddos hop back onto Google Meets and we have our Virtual Awards. During this time, I award students who truly have worked hard that week! For my students who have been awarded, I then email a copy of their award to their parent. A lot of my students are now trying to see their name in every category.
I do have students who struggle with virtual learning so I always make sure I have an award for those who are making improvements as well as group awards!
Genuine relationships can and will happen virtually if you create an environment which fosters their growth. often times it is so hard to think about even setting aside 5-10 minutes for anything other than teaching, but this is how those genuine relationships will be formed.
My Key Take Away!
These are just a few of the different ways that we can begin to build those relationships with our students. The more we get to know them and invest in them personally, the more we will be able to actually teach them.
Just because we are teaching virtually does not mean that what we used to do when we were face to face can’t be done. We virtual teachers just have to have a bit more magic up our sleeves to get the job done!
You can do it!… WE can do it!
