{"id":8649,"date":"2020-06-22T15:47:45","date_gmt":"2020-06-22T13:47:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eu.shop.wacom.eu\/wacom-infochannel\/?p=8649"},"modified":"2026-06-05T09:29:45","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T16:29:45","slug":"7-simple-ways-to-keep-students-focused-in-live-online-lessons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/7-simple-ways-to-keep-students-focused-in-live-online-lessons\/","title":{"rendered":"7 Simple Ways to Keep Students Focused in Live Online Lessons"},"content":{"rendered":"Teaching online live lessons are a great option for delivering learning with the familiar feel of the classroom. Students can work collaboratively, ask questions in real-time, and benefit from your explanations. It\u2019s a good alternative to face-to-face teaching.\nBut live lessons have their challenges. Keeping your students focused when they\u2019re not in the same room requires ingenuity. How can you keep your students interested and engaged with so many distractions at home?\nLet\u2019s look at seven simple ways to transform your virtual live teaching.\n<h2>1: Plan your lesson structure carefully<\/h2>\nGreat live lessons have pace and structure. Break your lesson into bite-sized chunks of learning with a clear objective. Plan time to revisit prior learning and evaluate progress using games and activities.\nTraditional teaching starts with sharing the learning objective, but it\u2019s unlikely every student will join virtual lessons on time. Instead, have a starter activity ready on your screen that requires no explanation. Students can complete it whilst waiting for the rest of the class. This saves you from repeating yourself and wasting lesson time.\nOnce most students have joined, share what they will learn today and explain how it fits into your scheme of learning. No lesson should feel random or pointless. Letting them see the purpose of the learning will help them focus.\nHave extensions planned ready for those who finish tasks quickly so they don\u2019t sit bored. Consider ways they could apply the same learning in a new context whilst waiting for others to catch up.\n<h2>2: Set your expectations<\/h2>\nGround rules for live lessons will keep your students on track. Share them before the lesson starts. This stops low-level behaviour disrupting learning.\nFor younger learners, these rules could be a series of child-friendly statements, for example:\n<ul>\n \t<li>I join live lessons with my microphone and camera off<\/li>\n \t<li>If I\u2019m stuck, I press the \u2018hands up\u2019 button and wait<\/li>\n \t<li>When it\u2019s my turn to speak, I can turn my microphone on<\/li>\n \t<li>When I want to ask a question, I type it in the live chat and wait<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nInclude screenshots in a simple \u2018how-to\u2019 guide. This will help students learn where features are. Dedicate your first lessons to becoming familiar with the technology rather than new learning.\n<h2>3: Watch your timings<\/h2>\nIt\u2019s easy to talk for too long and lose student focus. Make blocks of teacher talk short, speaking for no more minutes than the age of your learners. Intersperse talking and demonstrations with quick tasks for the students to complete.\nSet time limits to keep your lesson on track. Share your screen and use a timer display to show them how long they have for a task before you move on. Be realistic about what they can achieve in the time given.\n<h2>4: Focus on your delivery<\/h2>\nOnline lessons shouldn\u2019t be boring. You\u2019ll need all your usual classroom strategies to keep the attention on you. Build-in short movement breaks throughout your lesson to help keep them focused.\nMake your voice interesting to listen to. In the classroom, you vary your tone and volume, adding expression when you speak. Use these same strategies when talking online. Have fun and make listening to you an enjoyable experience.\n<h2>5: Be prepared to troubleshoot<\/h2>\nThings can go wrong during online lessons despite all your careful planning. Preparing for common problems means you can recover quickly and get your lesson back on track.\nSimple preparations include:\n<ul>\n \t<li>Sharing resources before the lesson<\/li>\n \t<li>Being realistic about the equipment your students have at home<\/li>\n \t<li>Checking games and activities are compatible with all devices<\/li>\n \t<li>Testing everything works before the lesson<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nStudents may disappear and reappear from your lesson if they have problems with their connection. How will they know what to do without interrupting you? What do they do if they\u2019re confused or stuck? Tell them what steps to take if they have a problem.\n<h2>6: Make lessons interactive<\/h2>\nVirtual lessons should combine speech and visuals. Share your screen to show images and presentations. Creating a virtual whiteboard lets you show demonstrations in real-time. <a href=\"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wacom-infochannel\/digital-ink\/visual-thinking-make-your-paper-notebook-digital\/\">Bamboo paper<\/a> is perfect for live drawings and annotations.\nUsing \u2018show me\u2019 tasks lets everyone share their ideas simultaneously. Students can put their thumbs up or hold up their answer to a class question. It\u2019s easy to see if they understand.\nEncourage students to type questions and comments as you speak. Plan times to respond to these before moving on to something new.\n<h2>7: Plan when students will speak<\/h2>\nPrevent a few confident students from dominating the conversation. This doesn\u2019t mean everyone has a turn to answer every time. Keep a class list handy and choose students to answer targeted questions. Everyone has the opportunity to talk at some point in the lesson.\nSome students may feel reluctant to speak to the class. They could disengage because they feel pressured. Consider different ways for them to contribute. Could they type their answer or choose from several options? Online quizzes let them share ideas without having to speak aloud.\n<h2>Final thoughts<\/h2>\nLive lessons are a great option for remote teaching. Gone are the long lectures delivered to students sitting passively and bored. Modern virtual learning is fast-paced, structured, and a collaborative experience.\nLive online lessons make students active rather than passive learners. Organising your lesson into smaller sections, with fun activities and tasks will keep them engaged, focused, and learning.","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":8650,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2656],"tags":[2268,2282,1149,131,153,2286,540,2287,2285,8,185,410],"class_list":["post-8649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-distant-learning","tag-distant-teaching","tag-e-learning","tag-education","tag-how-to","tag-online-class","tag-online-classroom","tag-remote-taching","tag-virtual-lesson","tag-wacom","tag-wacom-cintiq","tag-wacom-one"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8649\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.wacom.com\/en-us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}