With the current situation, it is becoming increasingly challenging for the schools to stitch a social fabric which is as compelling to the students as the traditional classes have been. Thus, online classes are the need of the hour.
Teaching online differs from traditional teaching on the ground that it requires a different approach. The teachers must develop the necessary skills to adapt to the online learning environment and make their materials effectual and engaging for students.
8 things to remember when teaching online
1. Focus on “Active” Learning
As has been rightly said by Benjamin Franklin “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I remember, involve me and I learn”.The key to the success of online tutoring is involving the students as much as possible. Try to make your classes as interactive as possible.
Without any physical presence of the teacher in the classroom, virtual presence must be established at the beginning of the class. To keep the ambience of the class engaging, Tutors need to be supportive to the students from the beginning until the end of the class. They need to find newer, innovative ways to teach their students online.
Engage with the students through interesting discussions which can drive student’s attention and facilitate their participation. Taking polls, asking them questions during live lessons are great for interaction. Students can interact with their teacher with the help of a Chatbox. Students can also be addressed by name which leads them to be proactive. The tutor must establish norms of interaction to make sure that the conversation stays within the subject.
2. Improve the Visuals
With technology at its best today, it has become possible today to have access to amazing visuals that are enduring. Then why not apply the same for the Students!
A consistent visual component should be introduced in the curriculum. The advantages of it are as follows:
a. Helps students to understand the matter in a better way.
b. Increases retentivity by 29-42%
c. Initiates higher thinking order .
d. Sharpens fundamental abilities that enable students to see and conceptualise visuals clearly .
e. Enhances tactile hand-eye-mind connections that improvise the ability to recall facts and retain learning.
The above can be achieved through creating appealing slide decks, with short texts, phrases or keywords. Relevant images can also help you drive focus. People’s attention span is short, so every visual aid you use in class needs to be relevant. Explaining concepts with precise and subject apt visuals is key to keeping students focussed.
3. Regular communication: Send e-mails twice a week to students, the first one introduces the concepts and the relevant assignments for the week. Then a mid-week check-in e-mail clarifies any student concerns, deals with administrative issues, and provides reminders about longer-term assignments.
4. Giving Feedbacks as well as taking feedback during live classes: Feedback given to students during the ongoing class keeps them alert and makes learning much more engaging, informative and motivational. Being quick in response to any student’s query creates a sense of the tutor’s presence of mind in the class as well as a feeling of assurance in the minds of the students.
At the end of sessions, the tutor must consult the student (in case of teenage students) and parents (in case of the children) for a true evaluation of how things are going. This feedback should cover everything including teaching methods and ask for any improvisation required in the teaching process.
5. Motivate your Students: When in an online class, the tutor must proactively work to keep the students motivated . One way to do such is Gamify! Tutors can award badges for successes, such as when students reach certain class milestones. Milestones can be in the form of challenges created with supplemental materials that are fun and requires concept application. Tutors can even award certificates for the completion of such challenges. Few Learning Management System (LMS), like VAWSUM, gives the power to award such certificates in-app for teachers’ convenience.
VAWSUM provides teachers with the opportunity to create quizzes on the chapter to make learning more interactive and fun. The whole idea is to communicate, encourage and support the students. This quote sums up the above pointer “You can teach a student lesson for a day; but if you can teach him to learn by creating curiosity, he will continue the learning process as long as he lives” – Clay P.Bedford
6. Foster Personal Relationships With Each Student: As different students have different learning abilities, in the core of online tutoring is to address students individually. A mix of different communication methods, including personalized responses to their discussion boards posts and emails addressed to only one student should be followed.
7. Make Use Of Group And Individual Projects: A healthy mix of group and individual projects is the best way to ensure success with online learning. Giving students this variety of learning styles will enhance their learning capabilities, and teach them the importance of both group work and individual achievements.
8. Make E-learning Content Mobile: The online learning is easily accessible for the teachers as well as students with the use of mobile phones. Mobile learning makes it easier for the teachers to answer queries of students quickly as well as to upload class assignments and relevant content anywhere, anytime. With the content available online, it becomes easier for the students to work with pace, increasing both performance and productivity.
VAWSUM mobile app offers the best solution for teacher-student engagement with its readily available features. With teacher tutorials available the teachers can easily prep themselves up to meet the challenges of online teaching.
To sum up, the current scenario demands online education. The ED-Tech sector is entering an altogether new sphere, the sphere of digitalization. Thus, the teachers, students, parents and all those related to the curriculum must be ready to prep themselves up. It is important for the teachers to be aware of the teaching system as well as to have the skills to make the class engaging for the students .
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