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A few tips for online teaching
Dr G. Sai Preeti, GITAM, Hyderabad
1. Do not panic that teaching is happening online, or that you cannot see the students, learn to master the art of online teaching.
2. We teachers typically assume that the students are gadget freaks and must be able to comply with the online teaching, NO. Playing a game and learning online are very different. If you are using a new tool give them time to adapt to it, teaching them how to use it. Be empathetic to the student.
3. Online teaching is very stressful not only for us teachers but for the students also, so downsize your lectures to small bits with activities in between. Activities could be of any kind, a quiz, a poll, feedback, a task to complete during the class. A model that we could look at is a lecture of 10/15 mins, activity, lecture, activity. This type of teaching needs planning, more than what we have done during the face-to-face classes.
4. Before you start, clearly state the rules of the class, which may be different from other classes. These would be the instructions the students will have to follow in your class. As a reminder, start every class with a slide stating these instructions. An example
a. Keep your cameras on when you enter the class and can close later if you have a bandwidth problem
b. Use the features of raise hand to ask a question.
c. Keep your self in mute during the class and unmute only to ask the teacher a question.
Create your own rules, so the student knows your expectations/regulations when you are taking the class. This practice will also help you to maintain even the class discipline.
5. Clearly define your learning objectives for the class – the students know what they are going to learn in the one-hour class.
6. To implement all that we have discussed above, we will need to plan the class, the activities, the tasks. One of the best-known ways is to create such a table for every class – a lesson plan. The below is a sample; you could make one with different columns but create one.
7. For an online class, we teachers need to familiarise ourselves with the Three C’s: Content, Connect and Confidence
a. Content – The content that we are delivering; usually, this would not be a problem as every teacher knows what they have to teach.
b. Connect – Connect to the students, call them by their names. Implement cold calling for student participation; call out for a specific student to answer.
c. Confidence – Build confidence in using an online tool, like if you’re using Zoom, learn all the features.
8. Every student has a different learning style; means the way they absorb, comprehend and retain content from a class. We being teacher have to tap or use all the other hasmethods for them to absorb, one of the best models known is the VARK model – Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing and kinesthetic. The VARK model can be in used in the class content or the out of class activity. In the class, your power points could use more visuals like pictures, animations or a video (with the correct copyrights). For an out of the class activity, you could give either reading or writing or a creating activity, as these map to the different learning styles.
An excellent reference to understand better: https://vark-learn.com/introduction-to-vark/
9. Have an Online Learning Associate (OLA), could be a fellow teacher or even a student. Why do we need an OLA? They could be of help if the internet goes down or organise an activity in the class.
10. Start implementing a Blended Model of Teaching (More in the next writeup). Blended learning is defined as “thoughtful fusion of face-to-face and online learning experiences (Garrison & Vaughan, 2008)”. Here the face-to-face is when you take a lecture through one of the tools like zoom or google meet or webex.
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