Online learning that took birth as an answer to global lockdowns has become the new regular now. As a result, most teachers or coaching institutes have an online presence. However, teachers new to online classroom can find it challenging to determine what methods or elements work best in online courses and how to begin. If you’re making a foray into the online teaching profession, then you must prepare yourself before considering creating an online classroom. In this post, we detail some effective teaching strategies that every online teacher should follow to create an excellent learning experience for her students.
Here is a list of 8 essential things to consider that will give your teaching career in an online class a head start.
Remote teaching requires more preparation than conventional classroom teaching. All the teaching strategies you have learned in your in-person classroom must be reconstructed to adapt to the virtual realm. This essentially means that you have to rethink your lesson structure, how you will be presenting the course materials, and assignments, and how you will assess your students. Besides creating the lesson plan, you have to plan it out so that it can be quickly executed online. Students attend online classes as it offers them the ability of time. Hence, your course materials should be easily accessible. Further, it should be simple to understand. If that is not the case, it defeats the whole purpose of remote learning.
Before you start developing the course structure and lesson plan, you will have to invest some time to get acquainted with your online classroom. You can’t simply log in to your classroom with your students, and start giving your lecture. Every online teacher teaching has to be creative and think of new ways to welcome students to your class. When online, all of your students are not attentive and waiting for you to start the course. You need to strike up a conversation with them such as to get them to listen to what you are saying.
Students miss the most in an online class is the human connection they develop in a physical classroom. This may be the connection with you or their friends. The conversations you have during their breaks or in the assembly are something that both you and your students miss. It is tempting to stick to your lesson plan and concentrate on getting your syllabus covered in your online class. However, it is equally essential to establish a communication structure for reaching out to your students. You can still have those chit-chats and pep talks, albeit through a virtual medium like emails, text or video messages, group calls, and chat boxes in your learning management system.
Convenience is the key to efficiency when creating online class experiences. You will not suddenly be able to amend or re-strategize your negligence’s or errors in the assignments. Instead, you will have to plan on long and purposeful student-centered tasks to manage your time effectively. Plan your assignments as long-term projects where students themselves feel responsible for their work. However, setting a clear goal and deadline that need to be met will keep your students on track. Activities like role-playing and peer teaching are some ideal assignments for online learning.
The tremendous boon of technology to online classes is the ability to interact with and engage students beyond class hours. You can make the best possible use of that time to meet your learning objectives. Record your lectures and ask your students to watch those in leisure. You can ask them to have group projects or discussions and send you the recorded videos. Send them links to view extra learning material – the possibilities are endless.
You can plan for your next session of online courses during your current session. Keep a notepad handy in your class and note down all the observations you have made for your existing lesson structure. Then, whenever you find something that needs to be modified in your curriculum, note your ideas and make the amendments promptly. Your introductory course structure remains the same, but little modifications will add value to your lessons with time.
It is easy for some students to stay silent in an online course and not participate in the class. They can be timid, passive, or simply uninterested. You have to get them engaged in your online classroom activities. Just asking them to speak up will not help. Give them some responsibilities like choosing the next topic for discussion or marking the attendance.
Further, you can stagger the time of day for discussion so that more students can participate. Take the help of their family and rotate the list of names of speakers so that everyone is mentally prepared to participate in class discussions. The onus here lies on you, how you can make your class engaging for everyone to meet your learning objectives.
Choose your tools for teaching classes wisely, such that class management is simple. Class management is a lot easier in the conventional physical classroom. However, your teaching will suffer unless your learning management system has a simple interface on remote platforms. Since your LMS will be the primary medium of interaction between you and your students or you and their parents, you need to familiarize yourself with all the features included in the system. Navigate through all the elements and know their functional qualities.
A well-managed teaching software can bring about a lot of difference in your teaching experience. With Classplus, you can customize your process of teaching classes. Get your own app and record your lessons and do live video conferencing with your students. In addition, you can take care of their assignments, use data-driven metrics to assess their performance, communicate with your students and their parents, and, last but not least collect your dues as well.
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