Tips For Online Teaching

Tips and ideas that will help you make your Virtual learning sessions better.

Karishma Shah

E.C.C.Ed, Founder at Playful Poodle

I have been teaching online for the past two months, and learning from my mistakes, I kept improvising things which helped me make my sessions better and fun. So, I thought let me put up my learning together and communicate it to my fellow teachers.

I am sure all of us were sailing in the same boat when we had to switch our classrooms virtually and get used to the 'NEW NORMAL'. And I believe this transition was much more difficult for the kids.

Tips And Ideas For Online Teaching

"What?!!...How ??.... When!!....." , We all had so many questions running in our head. But after trying many apps, websites, tools etc. we finally decided on a system for our virtual classes on Padlet.

In this blog, I will be giving you some really helpful insights that will guide you to make your online sessions fun and interesting.

Personalized Learning

Let's understand that the environment at home is very different than the one in class. At home children are more at ease and sometimes it gets difficult to prepare them to learn. At this time it is very important to cater to every child's needs individually. And this is possible if we divide the children into smaller groups of 5-6. This helps the kids tend to be more attentive, especially because they get a turn to speak and the sessions become more interactive.

We use Zoom for our virtual classes and the 2 teachers are divided among 14 kids. This helps us to understand how much the kids have grasped and also keep a track of their progress.

Keep it Short and Precise

Let's agree to this that we teachers always tend to give out much more than we had planned for our lessons. This takes up that extra time we had not planned for but it also gives us great satisfaction that we were able to deliver so much to the kids. But this wouldn't be a good idea during virtual sessions. When kids are learning virtually, all of them will be in different places. It often happens that kids get be distracted with their environment or with people around them. In this situation if we try to stretch our lessons and give out excess information at once, it would break the alpha and kids would loose interest quickly. And you know how boring and difficult it gets after that ! Hence we keep our first session for 30 minutes then have a 5 minutes brain break for our Unit. The reinforcement work was then sent on Padlet after our session.

Have your learning outcomes sorted. This helps to keep the sessions precise and also benefits in planning the sessions.

Have a Routine

Just like our class, we have a routine for our online sessions too. Thanks to Zoom for this amazing feature of 'Breakout Rooms' that help us create a class like environment. At first, all teachers and students come together in the same meeting and we sing our 'Circle Song'. Chit chat for 2-3 minutes and then we go to our 'Breakout Rooms' with our respective groups. Again after our first session, we all gather for our brain break and again go back to the 'Breakout Room' for our second session. This helped the children to settle down quickly and get accustomed to the routine. We observed that after a few sessions we did not have to instruct kids as they know the agenda.

To understand the 'Breakout Room' feature and its uses, click here

Think Out of the Box

In class, we try to include various methods and materials for conducting our lessons. However, this wouldn't always be possible virtually because of the constraints of space and material. At this time, the easiest way would be teaching through videos and books online. And this can get monotonous and boring as there is nothing much to do. We are already using so much technology already. Let's try to think out of the box, include materials that are easily available at home. As this will give children a hands on experience and they will enjoy learning. For this, you need to plan well as you will have communicate your requirements to the parents well in advance. Plan for alternate materials too and try to keep your lessons as hands on and interactive as possible. #plansmart

We were teaching the concept of 'Rotation and Revolution' for our virtual sessions. For which we used some fruits to show the movement of the Earth, Sun and Moon. We asked the parents to keep these materials ready before the session and the kids did it along in the session. This made them more curious and led to some fantastic inquiry further.

Make it Interactive

All of us enjoy when inputs are two ways rather than just from the teacher. Keeping the session interactive will help the kids to remain focused and enhance curiosity throughout the session. Having said this, also make sure that discussions don't go on for long as that makes it boring. Keep your questions to the point. Avoid having questions of general discussion regularly. Plan your session well in advance and have your teacher questions ready beforehand. This will help the structure of the session to be interactive, fun and short at the same time.

Involve the kids

I feel this is the best way to encourage kids to be prepared and all excited for the session. Give the students an idea about their session for the next day, Probe them for suggesting ideas, ask them what would they like to do by giving them option. If feasible you can even give them a choice at the beginning of the session to tell you what would they like to do today.

We told the kids about our next day's learning at the end of our session and invited them to throw in ideas. In fact one of the child volunteered and took up the concept by his own and the kids enjoyed listening to their peer. #studentagency #voicechoiceownership

Assessments

Assessments can be the best way to understand our teaching as it tell us how much the kids have grasped. While taking assessments, keeping in mind the following things will help the process to be fun.

• Keep it simple. Whether a reflection or any project, try to keep it as simple as possible as the kids might not be able to manage complex jobs.

• Give lot of alternatives. If your assessment is a reflection sheet then try to give them options to record it. For example, drawing is not necessary they can reflect orally on a video or be creative to make models etc.

• Communicate it well. The task should be explained to the students well. If they know what they are expected to do, they perform better.

• Make it fun. Assessment not necessarily has to be a reflection sheet. You can plan for games, hands on tasks, projects, etc. and make it fun. For our End of the Unit Assessment, we asked students to select a topic from all those we had learnt during our unit and present their understanding for the same. Kids chose their choice of topic and worked with parents to put some great presentations. Some of them did it through role play, some through models, drawings, PPTs, posters and some even presented like a talk show. It was great to see their confidence. #assessments

Patience and Understanding

Having said everything, patience and understanding are the main keys to help kids sustain and adapt this change well. The curriculum, if not completed is ok but what is taught must be done in depth. Be in touch with parents personally. Let them reach out to you for any help. Guide the parents how they can utilize their time with kids at home. Provide the technical support that they need. Keep checking on what kids are doing otherwise at home. Provide that extra help to the kids if required. We took separate online session for kids who found it difficult to grasp at once. This build a sense of trust among the parents and children. #keepcalm #onlineteaching

Learn from your own mistakes

Above of all, you are your own guide. Learn and keep improvising from your mistakes. Sticking to the plan is not necessary. Trust your instincts and see what work for your kids better. Keep your plans sustainable. Don't give in too much at first but plan smart and keep it practical. Everything is possible if you wish to make it happen.

I hope these tips help you make your virtual sessions better. Please do share your thoughts in the comment section below, I would love to hear them !!

Thank you for reading... Keep inspiring, keep sharing.

Karishma Shah

Founder at Playful Poodle.