THREE Tips for Teaching Online

As an online elementary teacher since the beginning of the pandemic, I have learned a few tips and tricks that I wanted to share.

Teaching online effectively requires striking a fine balance between possessing expertise in your field, technical know-how, and transforming this knowledge into something that can be understood through a refined teaching skillset. 

Your biggest advantage as an educator is that no one else can teach quite like YOU can. Your personality, approach, and style are what set you apart from other people that teach your subject. Your uniqueness is your strength. 

So, you have chosen your platform and started to plan your lesson. You have considered the concept, achievable outcomes, and content.  Now let's combine these elements into an online lesson to create an experience that engages students.

ENGAGEMENT

Provide many opportunities for students to participate in the learning. Get creative in promoting student discourse through polls, chats, whiteboards, online groups, and sharing their screen. Actively interact with the students to build a healthy professional relationship and an effective learning community.

FEEDBACK

Providing continuous feedback: Provide meaningful feedback in an informative and engaging manner throughout the lesson. Regular check-ins can be short exercises, surveys, collaborative feedback, and the chance to voice their questions, thoughts, and opinions to become part of the learning conversation. 

MIXING LEARNING TOOLS

Through images, videos, animations, and text, students have many modes in which to grasp the content clearly. Cater to many  learning styles as you create and present your content – utilize media, tell engaging stories, demonstrate activities, and intertwine pictures and text.

What other tips would you provide to online teachers? 

Post a comment. I would love to hear from you.