31 Ways to Encourage Students to Turn on their Cameras in LIVE Classes

31 Ways to Encourage Students to Turn on their Cameras in LIVE Classes

~ estimated 23-minute read ~

With more and more schools going back to virtual learning, due to increased positive COVID cases due to the Omicron variant (and, unfortunately, I just read about the Omicron Sub-variant, BA.2), I decided to share this article again with K-12 teachers.

This virtual learning challenge I am writing about comes in at third place after the first and second-place virtual teaching and learning challenges of students 1) not being engaged in LIVE classes, and 2) students not turning in work during virtual learning.

What is this third-place challenge in virtual learning?

Students won’t turn on their cameras in a live virtual class.

When I talk to teachers, young and old, new, and seasoned, and of all genders, teachers feel offended, disrespected, and helpless when students do not turn on their cameras during live virtual classes.

There are some teachers who know their students’ home situations and understand that not turning on their cameras is not a sign of disrespect, but the privacy of what home is like for that student, sometimes in comparison to peers’ homes who do turn on their cameras. I believe every teacher since March 2020, can tell one story where a student’s camera and microphone were both on and the teacher wished both weren’t turned on, for that student’s sake and the sakes of the other students in the classroom who heard and saw what was going on inside their peer’s home.

However, in the case of my school, the admin wants teachers to tell students to turn on their cameras. So, because it is an administrative ask, we teachers feel the need to follow through to be compliant with what school leadership wants to see in our live virtual classrooms.

There are some teachers who do have students with their cameras turned on in live virtual classrooms. I believe the main reasons for this compliance from students may be, 1) the students have a very good relationship with their teacher and want to please the teacher, 2) students respect the teacher and want to do what the teacher wants them to do, or 3) the teacher already has sound procedures and practices in the classroom, so turning on the camera in LIVE virtual classes is just one more protocol students believe they need to follow in the teacher’s classroom.

To put it all into perspective, with teachers and students in different locations inside of a class period time, students have a lot more control while teachers have a lot less control in virtual learning. As we remember back when we held class in our physical classroom, we realize now how much control we indeed had inside our four walls. We had space, time, and presence to control what our students did, where they sat, when they talked, etc.

Now, in live virtual classes, the only real thing we have control over is our content and virtually delivering it to students. We still do have many practices and strategies to get students to engage and do the work, however, given they have a home-court advantage, we really need to be more creative in getting back some of that control we have lost.

I believe the secret to getting virtual learning to work for students is to put our attention to how our students are feeling during their time in our virtual classes.

Think back to all the things you did in the physical classroom to make students feel good. You greeted them at the door with a smile, eye contact, probably a “hello” and even a handshake (will handshakes happen again so freely as they did before now).  Once inside the classroom, our expressions, proximity, our posters on the walls, and sometimes the little touches like class pets in aquariums, a bean bag chair, decorations on the walls, or flowers and pictures on our desk all had the friendly essence to make our students feel good.

Now, we turn on our computers, open our Team or Zoom or Google Hangout, and meet our students digitally, where they are, in the place their parents or guardians have control and created. We teachers no longer control what our students see around them while learning our content. Essentially, we lost the control to help our students feel the way we want them to feel in our class—welcome, supported, and part of the community.

What could be the substitute for the handshake we extended outside our physical classrooms that we can do now inside our virtual classrooms?

I believe what we do at the beginning of class can make a HUGE difference in getting students to not only turn on their cameras but to turn on their minds and attention to our content.

So, how do teachers get students to turn on their cameras? I have put together 31 strategies teachers can do to encourage students to turn on their cameras during live virtual classes. Some of these ways are going to make students feel good, like that handshake at the door. Other ways will be linked to our content. And the ways that are left are going to create fun in the classroom, which always is an important influencer to getting students to engage.

Before we move into these 31 ways to encourage students to turn on their cameras, here are some points to remember as we go through the techniques to exercise patience and understanding while implementing these strategies:

1. As I mentioned earlier, inside our physical classroom, we had a lot more control over the time, place, and task, in what our students did in the classroom. This condition gave teachers a huge edge over instruction and student learning that we can probably all agree on now, we took for granted when we had it.

2. Anyone may show up differently given where they are in the moment. For example, you probably heard from parents, or you know as a parent, children do not always show up their best at home as they show up for people outside the household. When I was in the classroom, parents would email or text me, asking if I was having trouble with their children in the classroom since the parents were having a lot of problems at home. 99.9% of the time, I was not seeing the same disrespect or lack of cooperation these parents were seeing in their pre-teen or teenage child. Now, with students at home doing school, some of what parents see on a daily basis we may now see in our virtual classrooms. We are all different people at home than we are out in public. There is a bigger comfort zone when we're home. Be cognizant of this dynamic when students are learning from home.

3. Our physical classrooms gave our students a break from home. In some situations, that was a good thing. Children who were living in homes with families that had a lot of problems were able to escape all that anxiety and negative energy when they were in our halls and walls for six hours a day. Now, these students are learning in those same places that sometimes is difficult to live inside as a young human being. To have the mindset to shift and code-switch from living at home to learning at home is not a trait that most adolescents would be good at as they are going through a lot of hormonal shifts.

4. The times we are in are not normal. With the pandemic and the social unrest in our society, it’s not only tough to be an adult, but it's also really hard to be a child. What are students hearing, reading, and seeing on the news, on their phone, or in their community may make them feel uncertain, uneasy, and possibly unsafe. Remember young people do not have the wherewithal to take control of their feelings and emotions and compartmentalize them to get into school mode in a hot second. Many of us as adults have trouble self-regulating well. For these reasons, students’ social-emotional wellness needs to be our TOP priority as their teacher in our class, so the instruction and learning have room to happen for the student.

5. Remember when we were in the classroom with our students? Do you remember knowing the power of your influence and how you could bring out the best in your students? Well, that advantage is harder to grasp since students are learning at home; we’ve lost at least half of our power of influence, if not more. You know what I mean…being in the presence of someone, you can feel the person's energy, support, and genuine attention to you and what you are doing. Our students are missing our influence which means they need to be their own influence, their cheerleader, time manager, and initiator. And as a young person, that’s all hard to do.

6. The last point to think about is probably the simplest to keep in mind. When we were in the physical classroom, we had the role of the teacher, and our students had the role of the student. Now in our homes, we teachers are teachers, but at the same time, we are mothers, and caregivers, and the cook, and the spouse, and the teacher of our own children. Our students are in the same shoes. They have more roles while learning at home when they are learning from home than just the role of a student. They are the child, could be the caregiver of younger siblings while a parent is working, and sometimes the student could be the male of the household, keeping everything in running order. See the multi-role person who is showing up as your student on your screen.

I point out these six particulars because meeting students where they are at is the first step in getting them to do what you want them to do in our live virtual classes while they are in their homes, and we are in ours.

Below are six of the 31 strategies I know work in LIVE virtual classes to encourage students to turn on their cameras. by making them feel comfortable. Some of the techniques are easy and some will take some time talking students into doing them. But know, one technique, a variety of techniques, or a combination of techniques are all options to find out what works best with your students in inspiring them to turn on their cameras in LIVE classes.

1. Take one class period to teach the students to create backgrounds on either a PowerPoint slide or a Canva graphic with a horizontal orientation to use as a background when in virtual classes. This move will give students the privacy they may need to feel comfortable in live classes. Ask the student to create a background that they will use as their background when their cameras are on in class. Give students ideas of what they could place in their background. They could place an image about a hobby, or their favorite musician, or the video game that takes up a lot of the free time. You could even hold a contest and give a prize each week for the best backgrounds if it becomes a weekly ritual to change their backgrounds, given you ask students to feel free to change up their backgrounds. You could also ask students to create a background around your social studies lesson, or ELA, science, or math lesson for the week. Look for the linked Teacher Guide you may use to teacher your students how to create their virtual backgrounds in my 31 Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn on Cameras PLUS 4 LINKED BONUSES Guide.

2. Give badges to students who have their cameras on all five days of the week, or for all LIVE classes in the week in case you are meeting with them four days a week. Even if you do not use an LMS (Learning Management System) like Canvas which automatically awards badges, you may create a simple camera on a checkoff spreadsheet with checks in the date columns when specific students have their cameras on. For example, if at student has the student's camera turned on all five days, for the entire class, or all the LIVE classes for the week, you award the student a badge. Create your own badges using a free tool like Open Badge Designer - https://badge.design/. I suggest embedding the spreadsheet into a page in your online space so students can see who has the most camera-turned-on checks for the week. They will want to see a checkmark in all their week’s cells. Badges make a great incentive for our student gamers. Look for the linked Teacher Guide you may use to create badges and the badge bulletin board spreadsheet in my 31 Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn on Cameras PLUS 4 LINKED BONUSES Guide.

3. Designate class leaders whose one responsibility is to give a friendly reminder to students to turn on their cameras at the beginning of class. You could say something like this at the start of class, “Jerry, will you please do a camera check before class while I take attendance?” That way, students can either remind another student politely (may have to create some guidelines for your class leaders) with verbal prompts or messages in the LIVE class chat. I would also take turns with who your class leaders are and would start with the student who does not like to put on his camera to be one of the first leaders. Again, you will give these class leaders more than just this responsibility, so they do not feel you chose them because they do not turn on their cameras in class.

4. Teach students how to talk using American Sign Language (ASL)in your class. There are so many reasons why using sign language can help students communicate to the teacher, and to their peers, without disrupting anyone who is speaking, which is another common situation in the LIVE virtual classroom. Share and teach your students ASL gestures that work in the classroom to keep things running smoothly and help you gauge their learning. Again, I like to take part in a class to explain ASL (American Sign Language), the benefits of using ASL in LIVE classes, and then teach students a different ASL gesture each day. Also, create a graphic that shows the ASL signs you want students to use in the classroom. Students need to have their cameras on for us to see their sign language gestures. Look for the linked Teacher Guide you may use for popular ASL gestures in my 31 Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn on Cameras PLUS 4 LINKED BONUSES Guide.

5. Use EdTech tools like Flipgrid where students record their own videos to answer questions, do demos, offer a book report, or explain the steps of solving a math problem. Then play the videos for all the students in your LIVE classes. Students get used to seeing each other’s faces on the screen in videos and then turning on their cameras is no longer a big deal. Look for the linked Teacher Guide you may use to create your class and discussion topic in Flipgrid in my 31 Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn on Cameras PLUS 4 LINKED BONUSES Guide.

6. Start class out with their favorite (school-appropriate) music and ask students to turn on their cameras and talk while you take attendance, get your presentation file ready, or whatever you want them to do so students have some time to ease into class with their friends. Making your virtual room feel comfortable to students gets them to feel more comfortable to turn on their camera.

Overall, encouraging students to turn on and keep their cameras on help make online learning more personable, more appealing, more stimulating, and more social. Teachers want to make students feel comfortable and safe in our LIVE virtual classes just like we did in our physical classrooms. Creating the right energy at the beginning of class is so important in virtual learning as well as throughout class to the end of our LIVE virtual classes. Planning a strategy at the beginning, middle, and end of class is best for the best results.

Would we have tried half of these strategies in the physical classroom? Probably not. But we teachers need to get creative to put the "people-present energy" back into our classes. Seeing a name in the participants’ pane with no camera on is not conducive to good student engagement, a supportive community, or a genuine connectedness we want our students to feel in our classroom. We are eager to provide opportunities for students to develop physically, socially, and emotionally, all the development they may be missing out on due to not going to physical school and being with their friends five days a week.

Inspiring students to turn on their cameras is extremely important. Teachers want to find ways to have students who may feel disconnected from their friends and the whole school vibe to feel connected and that they belong. Turning on their cameras and celebrating community and connection helps the learning, sharing, feelings, and overall social-emotional wellness of our students. And when all of this is better, they do better in school. Guaranteed.

👉 Get the other 25 strategies in my 31 Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn on Cameras PLUS 4 LINKED BONUSES Guide! The four linked teacher guide bonuses inside the 31 Strategies to Encourage Students to Turn on their Cameras Teacher Guide are the 1) Virtual Background, 2) Badge & Badge Bulletin Board, 3) ASL Virtual Class Gestures, and 4) Flipgrid Discussion Guides mentioned above.

Please comment below—What are one or two ways you will start within your classroom to inspire your students to turn on their cameras?

Share your answer in the comments below. I would love to read all your turn-your-camera-on encouraging strategies and ideas.

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Next week’s blog topic: Instructor presence is now important as ever to fill in the spots virtual learning doesn’t fill like we could in our physical classrooms. Come back next week to find out about strategies to up the power of your instructor presence in your virtual classes.

Photo attribution: This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC BY