Many schools and universities all over the world sit empty as recent developments have forced students to remain at home. Even teachers have traded their offices and classrooms for the protective bubble of their living rooms and computer screens. However, life must continue as usual, and teachers still have to prepare lesson plans and activities for remote learning. This has posed many challenges for both learners and teachers as they adjust to a new system.
Teachers often wear many hats, and remote learning has forced them to take on new roles. As everyone navigates this new reality, many educators still find the transition difficult. After all, switching from classroom-based learning to a new one with barely any time to prepare is a Herculean task. As learners deal with the requirements for senior high school, so do teachers have to think of ways to maintain their high standards of education.
Remote learning is a challenge that we must all face, but it’s not an impossible task. Here are a few tips and tricks that can help you create a caring and productive learning environment for your students.
Keep it simple
In a traditional classroom setting, educators and learners have the luxury of space and access to school resources such as libraries and projectors. When introducing new topics, you often start with the general concepts and then you field questions from your students. As you go along, you delve deeper into the subject and clarify any misunderstandings along the way. This process, while slow, ensures that students understand the topic at hand.
One of the main challenges of remote learning is the absence of a physical classroom. Education is often collaborative, but e-classrooms don’t provide the same intimacy and instantaneous connection that physical classrooms offer. You have to understand that you’ll have to shift your model to one that is driven by self-directed tasks.
That’s why you need to keep your coursework simple. Simplify and shorten your instructions, and you need to make clear from the get-go the goals of a particular task. You also have to provide reading materials in the form of e-books or PDFs yourself.
Create a homepage
You want to make learning easy for you and your students, and one way to do that is to establish a homepage for your students. You can use a free service such as Google Classrooms, or you can create a website of your own.
A single homepage ensures that everything your students need to learn is in one portal. With so many tools and apps out there, it can be tempting to use them all. However, all that technology can get confusing quickly. Post updates and upload all reading materials and learning resources on your page.
Communicate with each student
One of the things your students will miss the most is the human element of the classroom setting. In remote learning, there are no seatmates or recess or after-school activities. Everything has to be done through the computer.
If you want to break the loneliness of remote learning, make it a point to communicate with each student. It could be through voice chat, email, video calls, or whatever system you prefer.
Creating a productive online learning experience is often frustrating. You have to learn new concepts, and teaching to a computer screen can get old fast. These pointers will help you become a better online educator and ensure that your students get the education they deserve.
