How to Improve the Student's Educational Environment in the Digital Classroom?

“One way to improve our online teaching practice is through more detailed content, more practical and experiential classes, with the support of invited experts on different course topics.”

It happened when no one expected it: the pandemic sent students in all educational levels home to complete studies. The Tecnológico de Monterrey was no exception, and we had to reformulate what we knew then as distance education. This experience reinforced the idea that to achieve better learning in students, we had to consider their concerns and needs to motivate them for self-learning. During the prolonged confinement, we learned that empathy and sensitivity are skills we must develop to help students confront the challenges they will encounter at various times in their academic training.

These 19 months of pandemic affected the regular academic year in all schools because, compared to a face-to-face educational modality, the interactions with the student and the follow-up to their questions in a virtual class are more complicated. Due to the difficulty of maintaining effective interactions with teachers, the parents have had to do the accompaniment tasks and activities follow-up to the children attending preschool, primary, or high school. On many occasions, they were not the best to answer questions or deal with the academic delays of their children; however, that was a challenge that we had to face in most homes due to the confinement caused by the health emergency.

The class was an opportunity to share with the family moments in which the pandemic affected our coexistence with others. “Dad says thank you very much! He took the course together with me, and we are delighted!”

In the case of university students, something similar happened. However, we tried to adapt by improving our teaching practices with more detailed content and more practical and experiential classes, helped by invited experts in different course topics. We made class interaction and dynamics more exciting with expert guests who interested the students in the topics. The students also had the opportunity to collaborate and share their ideas, positions, and proposals. In this article, we share our experiences.

Generating interest beyond the virtual classroom

Our contribution is sharing the experience we had during the intensive winter period 2021 teaching the course “Mexican Politics: Evolution and Challenges.” offered at the undergraduate level of Tec de Monterrey in the ELITE modality. Tenured professors teach the latter courses with unique experiences and guest specialists with notable trajectories in their professions. They enrich and add value to the contents of the course through weekly synchronous sessions by ZOOM.

In this course, 85 students in various disciplinary programs and 15 Tec campuses participated. We address issues such as the formation of the political system in Mexico, especially the conditions for democratic exercise; democratic checks and balances; and the response of governments emanating from the democratic mandate to address social desires and demands in various areas.

Even before face-to-face classes were suspended due to the pandemic, we delivered this course in a model where students physically in a classroom participated in a synchronous session. Academic facilitators connected used Zoom video conferencing to connect with special guests. The classroom was equipped with a camera, screens, and audio for dialogue and discussing the various topics with the guests.

How to improve a course in a virtual environment

After the decision to close the face-to-face classrooms at Tec de Monterrey, we moved to a remote, synchronous educational model. We aspire to maintain a high level of interactions, which involve a more detailed design of the class sessions, as follows:

We include special guests who spark interest in the class topics. Having special guests with an excellent trajectory and experience in their professions evokes students’ curiosity and interest.
We trigger student participation with “hook” or topical impact questions. We achieve this by arousing the students’ curiosity about each week’s topic by sharing relevant news about impactful events in the country.
We know the students’ opinions in real-time. We apply quick surveys in each session with guests, using Google Forms at the end of each class to know their opinions about the guests, their interest in the topic, and how the speaker contributed. Then we determine appropriate actions.
We animate the students to contribute actively to the sessions. It is beneficial to include group presentations where students share reflections through videos presented in class or through live, synchronous expositions. In this way, the students had to investigate, analyze, and share information.
We use digital tools that promote student participation. We prepare sessions with short segments that allow the students to “interrupt” the flow of the teacher’s presentation and jump in, inserting their voices into the heat of the topic. We achieve this by asking questions that trigger participation using interactive tools such as Mentimeter and Kahoot. We also use Padlet to organize the different class resources, such as YouTube, presentations, and videos.
We keep the communication channels active, addressing the students’ concerns immediately. The Zoom chat greatly facilitates the feedback and close communication with the students during the class’s teaching and the use of REMIND, allowing us to have immediate and open communication. It provides the space to respond and share ideas with the teaching team.

As the course progressed, we were surprised by the students’ messages of thanks to everyone for all the effort:

“Dad says thank you very much! He took the course with me, and we are delighted!”

“Hahahaha, how cool, my dad too!”

“Teacher, my mother also did not miss any of the classes!”

“Even my mom listened to him because she was interested in what he was talking about in the class.”

These are just a few comments left by the students during this learning experience. They showed us a dimension of strengthening family ties through distance learning, which we did not know would happen.

In some cases, parents and students shared the class time, appreciating the value of learning. It strengthens the message of the relevance of study in people’s development. The course was also an opportunity to share the moments in which the pandemic affected relationships in the family. On several occasions, it implied tensions in the home due to the prolonged isolation. It is very satisfying to have offered a brief space for positive enjoyment during the confinement.

Reflection

The classes with expert guest
s and the additional sessions to follow up on questions allowed students to relate new information to what they already knew, readjusting and reconstructing both in the process. As a teaching team, we try to close the digital divide that we assumed would become more significant due to the need to migrate to the digital modality. We believe that by creating a learning environment where the students participate in what and how they learn, we will make significant advances in class dynamics.

When we think about how to transform education, we should seek to improve traditional practices and strengthen confidence and open the way for students to do things better.

About the authors

Daniel Hernández Franco (daniel.hernandez@tec.mx) is an economist at the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana. The Mesoamerican University of San Cristóbal de las Casas awarded him the Honoris Causa Doctorate in 2015 for his contributions to social policy. He is currently a research professor in the “Education with Equity and Quality Initiative” of the School of Government and Public Transformation at Tecnologico de Monterrey. He has published more than 60 works in books and specialized journals and disseminations on education, demography, public policy, and evaluation of social policy programs.

Adela Vega Guerra (adela@tec.mx) has a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Tec de Monterrey. She is currently Academic Coordinator of Social Sciences and Government in the Professional for Digital Education program.

Gabriela Espínola Carballo (gabriela.espinola@tec.mx) has a bachelor’s degree in economics from Tec de Monterrey and a Master’s in Applied Public Management, also from Tec. She is currently a Tutor Professor in Social Sciences and Government in the Professional for Digital Experiences program, in ELITE courses.

Edited by Rubí Román (rubi.roman@tec.mx) – Observatory of Educational Innovation.

Translation by Daniel Wetta.