What Skills Make You An Efficient Online Teacher?

The decision to move education from offline classroom to online software was sudden but looking at the growing numbers of COVID-19 cases, this new setting might stay for a while. As a result, teachers from kindergarten to high school, are trying to make online education meaningful, comfortable, and effective. 

Until now, online classes were only meant for working professionals who’d take correspondence courses or supplementary education to up their skills, leaving the teaching staff with a negligible amount of pressure. But today it has become a primary source of education across all the institutions and levels of education. So, the skills required for organizing online classes have also evolved.

Here’s how teachers can make their online classes more effective and efficient: 

Create engaging content: Students’ concentration level is weak and to hold it is the greatest test of an online educator. Thus, rolling out as much visually appealing content in the form of slides would assist with holding the grouping of students together. Let your inner visual planner sprout! 

Interact as often as possible: Frequent connection with students can help you accomplish in your online classes. Keep the students connected with each other with the assistance of verbal discussions or break out room exercises to keep them alert. The more energetic you are seen on the screen, the better. Try not to keep your tone plain, make voice adjustments with high and low pitch modulations wherever necessary. This will guarantee that students don't go astray due to your monotone voice. 

Increase your technical expertise: As an online educator, you must develop your technical capabilities. Here’s what you need to have: 

  • Complete information on prerequisites for teaching in an online setup.  

  • Ability to assess Internet tools.  

  • Understanding parts of copyright benefits and infringement.  

Plan for periodic assessments: There is an assortment of free online tools accessible to design pre-class, in-class and post-class evaluations. These must be utilized cautiously as each evaluation makes an effect on students' mental self-view and tendency to learn. If an assessment is excessively simple, it may send an inappropriate message about their learning capacity and cause arrogance, and if it is very difficult, it may cause lack of encouragement towards learning and online classes. 

No matter what, show up: Fundamentally, asynchronous education expects you to be always present in the classroom with your students. Make a calendar for significant and dynamic inclusion in your online classes. Spend as much time you would in a traditional classroom to be noticeably present and occupied with your online classes. You could utilize various approaches to be effectively engaged with students like post a week after week announcement to give a review of the coming week's topic or recapitulate what you have taught during the week, or even both; present a quick video to answer queries and concerns about a chapter or any particular topic; while constantly grading students on the basis of their understanding. 

Be empathetic: Sometimes the distance between an educator and a student in an online class taints their communication. If this happens to you, practice compassion. For instance, toward the finish of a chapter, you could reassure your students that there is nothing wrong for them to ask questions or you to quickly go through the same explanation again. Try and be in their shoes, for its not easy for students to get used to the asynchronous way of learning. Use a more friendly, more mindful and more empathetic approach than simply asking them to write down their questions. 

Strong conviction, proper preparation and a joint effort between teachers and students in an online teaching setup make this kind of learning experience more fruitful. Students’ scholastic achievements rely upon talented, profoundly energetic teachers in both conventional and online study halls. So, to make it all the more meaningful, try and incorporate these skills into your methodologies. 

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Dr Sunita Gandhi

Guest Author The author is Founder, Global Classroom Private Limited (GCPL) & Global Education & Training Institute (GETI)

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