What adjustments & preparations have you done for online teaching? Are you willing to share online teaching tips?
Believe it or not, online teaching is indeed challenging. I have experienced it several times, and I must say it’s different from classroom teaching.
There’s a huge difference when you are with your students in the same location from letting them study and learn from afar.
Recalling all those experiences I had a few years back, I’d like to share a few online teaching tips.
Teaching
Classroom: You can use various materials and techniques to allow students to understand the lesson.
Online: It’s quite dependent on slides, videos, and other self-paced learning.
Online Teaching Tip: When creating slides, be as detailed as possible. Most of the time, students are not able to pay attention to the lecture because they’re drawn in looking at the slide. Adding notes, key words, and other attention-seeking images will help the teaching technique. Use online slide maker to use existing templates.
Interaction
Classroom: We can crack jokes or insert stories in the middle of the lecture because you are in the same environment.
Online: Jokes or discussion is based on the content or the topic to avoid anyone getting lost in the conversation.
Online Teaching Tip: Don’t forget to check if the connection is stable from time to time. Start with a warm greeting, and friendly tone to set the atmosphere of the class. Flash images, notes, or slides when attempting to start an interaction. You may call specific names to make sure attention is captured.
Voice Modulation
Classroom: We are told to let our voice be heard in all corners of the room.
Online: We can’t be so loud so as not to distract the listeners.
Online Teaching Tip: Let’s keep our voice well-modulated. The more pleasing it sounds, the more listeners will focus on the discussion. I remember when a student used to complain that my voice was too loud. Only then I realized that I wasn’t in the classroom anymore, and the microphone was doing its job to set the right volume.
Learning Materials
Classroom: We’ve used all of them: textbooks, PPT, flashcard, videos, and others.
Online: They need to be downloadable and viewable by all.
Online Teaching Tip: Add variety when using materials. Using the same set of materials can make things monotonous. Screen sharing is a useful tool to make the lessons more useful. No wonder this is an online teaching tip I always read most of the time: variety.
Communication
Classroom: We can set a specific time or appointment beyond classroom hours.
Online: It must be sent through chat or email.
Online Teaching Tip: There must be a standard way of communicating with students. Most students tend to feel that they can reach out to their teachers using messenger anytime. This may lead to missed out messages that’s why scheduled online consultation is essential.
Distraction
Classroom: Noise background from the other classroom? Gadgets and other leisure activities?
Online: Almost all of them are present from time to time! We’re unable to control these distractions since we’re in different places.
Online Teaching Tip: One online teaching tip we must remember is the same with setting of reminders. There are things we can’t control such as internet connection, power outage, and others. We can just simply remind them of the general rules, such as staying away from distractions and others.
Classroom: We all know how creative teachers are when it comes to providing assessment. They can measure students learning through paper or performances.
Online: Assessment is dependent on online quiz, or submitted output.
Online Teaching Tip: Create assessment forms in schedule. There must be a balanced way of choosing the right tests so the students wouldn’t be surprise in anything they do.
Despite the differences, one thing is for sure: teaching remains to be learner-centered.
These are just based on my experiences. Let’s work together to improve our online classes.
If you feel that you have more online teaching tips to share, you may submit your own stories or articles!
