Teaching offline cannot be replaced by online teaching. However, students can learn better if teachers follow certain practices and strategies. We must follow these 10 important and effective strategies to teach students online.
1. Know your students
Most often teachers teach the subject based on knowledge and capability. However, the widely accepted and most effective teaching method is based on the level of student knowledge and capacity to learn. The student’s capacity can be enhanced by making the subject interesting and enjoyable. To teach the subject effectively, the level of students’ subject knowledge should be known to the teachers. Therefore, teachers should spend at least 20% of their time getting to know the students while teaching online.
2. Connect with students
Connecting students with the subject and teacher is the most crucial phase of online teaching. The most difficult subject knowledge can be taught effortlessly if students are ready to listen. It is achievable if the teacher makes sure students are listening and connected. While teaching online teachers should take the name of students in between the subject content. For example, do you know Rohan? Now you introduce the startling fact. This fact is not only transferred to Rohan, it has been transferred to all without taking the name of each one. Next time take the names of other students to make them attentive in the class and connected.
3. Reconnect with Students
With these three steps, you have ten minutes to teach the subject knowledge effectively. After teaching for ten minutes, reconnect with students making sure they can understand the same. The physical presence of students in front of the electronic device does not provide any feedback about their
understanding of the subject. Often students could not understand what we have taught since the children have high entropy making them move often from one subject to another object and vice versa.
4. Inter-connection among the Students
Let students talk to each other in online classes like offline classes. Most of the subject knowledge is transferrable by the students themselves. Students remember the subject knowledge forever when they learn from their friends and classmates. Let them know from each other even if the knowledge is partly true, the corrections can be implemented by the teacher as a subject expert. Remember, your objective of teaching is to connect the students with the subject.
5. Use of Scientoons & Schematic Diagrams
Scientific knowledge is often complex and difficult for students to learn effortlessly. However, scientoons and schematic diagrams simplify the complex subject knowledge. Scientoons are a combination of cartoons and science to make scientific knowledge available to common people including children. Have you ever thought about why your child watches cartoons? While teaching online we have to use more scientoons to make it interesting and enjoyable for the students.
6. Let the students do the work
Teachers should assign the work and let the students themselves work. Students learn more while working with examples/calculations/drawings/charts etc. On the other hand, sharing evaluations, corrections, modifications, and suggestions on the student’s work is crucial while teaching online. Indeed, this strategy improves their learning ability and eagerness to know the subject.
7. Avoid Information-Based Teaching
Information-based teaching is often boring for most students. While teaching online we should avoid giving them too much information. It can be noted that information is readily available to all the students now. If they are interested they can collect it from the internet/books/magazines etc.
8. Inter-disciplinary Approaches
To teach students online, it’s important to focus on interdisciplinary knowledge rather than a single domain of study. Students often grasp knowledge easily while integrating various aspects of the subject knowledge. At the same time, providing a holistic approach to understanding complex scientific knowledge is highly effective while teaching online.
9. Combination of Digital Tools
While teaching online we should include various digital tools and techniques including pdf, excel, word, PowerPoint, Microsoft interacting boards, etc. to teach students effectively. It can be noted that each digital tool has its specific purpose. A single tool can not fulfil the requirements of teaching and learning processes. As a teacher, learning various tools and techniques will make our online teaching more effective and widely accepted by the students.
10. Students Feedback
The most important strategy for effective online teaching is to take student feedback and implement the changes according to the students. Taking the student’s feedback positively is highly crucial to improving the teaching styles and quality. Therefore, student feedback should be the highest priority among the top 10 important and effective strategies to teach online.
Conclusion
The above 10 important and effective strategies to teach students are highly productive and practicable easily. However, these strategies depend on the teachers, students’ level, and subject of interest. Therefore, it is important to identify suitable methods or techniques to enhance the effectiveness of teaching and learning.
