How to Be a Good Online Teacher?

An excellent teacher can produce effective training in the classroom. The same offline teaching principles and methods can be applied to online teaching. You must deliver content with clarity, engage students, and connect with them.

 Want to be an expert in online teaching? Only excellent online teachers can build engaging classes. We have rounded up the best tips to make your online teaching better.

Keep the Video Short

If your videos are longer than 15 minutes, it can create problems for students because of slow downloading. It simply leads students/learners to engage in some other activities rather than focusing on the online lectures. If you want to elaborate then make 2-3 videos and send them separately.

Be Active in Online Videos

It is mandatory that you should be physically present in the lecture videos. It gives a positive impact on learners. Studies have found that lecture videos with instructors’ faces are more effective than narrated or voice over videos/ slideshows. It is essential to create teaching videos with your face.

Record Your Teaching Videos – Don’t Stream Them

Record videos and send them to students so that students can watch in their own time. There are circumstances when students may suffer from illness or no proper internet access. They may end up skipping the live-streamed lecture. It is a good practice to record lectures then send them to students.

Check Your Slides

Many learners use smartphones to access online learning. Before recording a video, you must check your slides on a smartphone whether they are readable on a phone screen or not. Font sizes, templates, colors, and screen ratios should be checked more once.

Provide Interactive Activities

You should deliver interactive lessons and activities that can engage learners in a number of ways. You can prepare trivia questions/group discussions related to the subject that may help engage with content.

Set Reasonable Expectations

When you prepare a set of trivia on a particular subject make sure all questions can be answered by referring to the provided lectures or given learning sources. If you ask students to write a summary of the videos, you must tell them it is not a serious assignment. You should make it a mandatory assignment but a low-stakes task. It will definitely produce better outcomes and responses from learners. You can provide 10 trivia/quiz questions or 250-300-word limit summary to engage learners for 30 minutes.

Smart Way to Measure Attendance

If you want to be a smart online tutor, then  tell the students that their attendance will be calculated by their participation in a quiz. It increases students’ involvement. You may not find time to measure attendance, so this activity will help to check and grading features during learning.

Use Group Communication

Make use of a video conferencing tool and ask students to log in at the scheduled time. During video conferences, students can communicate with one another and ask doubts. You must create a friendly environment so that learners won’t hesitate to participate or speak. Since the online class is the only option, you must make learners feel as supported as possible.

Let the Students Do the Work

The aim of online teaching is to engage students in the content for a longer time. You require an environment where students spend more time learning without any distractions. You need to give students opportunities such as group discussions about the subject, quiz games, and grade their own assignments.

Ask for Feedback

After 2 or 3 weeks, you can ask your students for honest feedback about teaching methods, or require any changes. Getting feedback from students can improve your quality of teaching.

If you can incorporate these tips into your online teaching methods then that will make your training job more effective. You can be a good online teacher if you adapt to new digital techniques for online classes.