FAQ 2 Preparation

Q2) How to prepare ourselves and the students for online classes?

A) Preparing the students mentally to attend online classes is really important. Classroom learning for them in often a passive exercise. In an online class, the students have to necessarily play an active role. In a classroom, if the student mentally drifts off, the teacher is able to notice and bring the student back into the learning process. In the absence of video feeds and audio responses, due to either large class strength or low bandwidth (or both), the onus of paying attention to the class falls squarely on the students. And we know this is tricky.

Some possible tips are

(In cases where the student strength is large, it is advisable to have a teaching assistant to implement some of the tips)

a. Spend time at the beginning of the course to get to know your students. It helps!

b. Set rubrics for evaluation at the beginning of the course. This will help the student to know what kind of participation is required, and seek help if there is a problem.

c. Also clearly state what the expectations from your institute are of them in terms of attendance, submission of assignments etc.

d. Explain to students the need for their active participation and the difference between pedagogy (for children), andragogy (for adults) and heutogogy (for self-learners). (See the table at the end of doc)

e. The students may be asked to read and sign an academic honor code pertinent to online teaching.

f. At times the students may request for alternative forms of submission of assignments (over email instead of LMS, scanned document instead of typed), often because of lack of devices and/or internet. Be open to suggestions.

g. Check your LMS or conference call software (Google meet, Zoom etc.,) before every class. Treat the class hours with the same respect as normal classes. Remember that the students (a) have other classes to attend and (b) have limited bandwidth.

h. Have a student co-learner in every class. This could be the student with the best bandwidth, who can help you with allowing their classmates enter the online class while you are teaching, collate questions from the chat box, interrupt you if there is a technical glitch etc.

i. Be sensitive to the fact that students may leave the online class and rejoin, sometimes multiple times in an hour, because of bandwidth issues.

j. Have a clear strategy of how you are going to send links for classes, lecture notes, videos etc. Use of sites such as Google drive will require you to upload only once and allow any number of students to download at their convenience.

k. Almost all online meetings use up to 80MB for the students to watch and the recordings can be as large as 2.5 GB. Use appropriate software to reduce the file sizes before you upload.

l. Provide the class notes/presentation/recording to the students who may have missed the class.

(Do you have more tips? Write to us at dfot2020@gmail.com. We will share them on this site).