More students are enrolling in internet-based classes and degree programs than ever before. If you’re an experienced classroom teacher, there’s a huge opportunity for you to increase your reach by presenting your courses online. However, there are significant differences between teaching face-to-face and teaching in an online environment. These 5 tips can help you make the transition to online instruction easier:
1. Make a Conscious Effort to Build Engagement Opportunities Into Each Session
You can’t necessarily expect to just show up, teach and interact with your students in the same way you do in a classroom environment. In an online environment, you must first consider how you will introduce those interactions into the class. In a face-to-face classroom, students feel free to raise their hands or make eye contact with you when they have a question or want to contribute to the discussion. In an online environment, you’ll need to be more proactive about pausing to ask if anyone has questions, needs clarification or wants to raise a point for discussion.
2. Communicate Your Expectations to Students Upfront
If you expect students to participate in online class discussions, make it clear to them that they will be graded on their participation. Then spell out to them what, exactly, that means. How many forum posts do you expect them each to contribute? How often must they contribute to the class discussions? What criteria will you use for grading these contributions? Give them concrete examples of what “A level” work looks like so they have a goal to aspire to.
3. Allocate Sufficient Time to Learn About the Technologies Available to You
If you’ve never used headsets, online conferencing technologies, webinars or similar technologies before, expect that there will be a learning curve – and plan for it. Update your usual schedule to make time for keeping abreast of the technologies you’ll need to incorporate into your routine. It would be a mistake to think that you can just show up and get it right without spending any time on training and adapting to your new workflow.
4. Allocate Enough Time to Design, Record, Edit and Submit Your Classes
Time constraints are one of the biggest barriers to succeeding with online education. One of the most common mistakes educators make in transitioning to online courses is underestimating the amount of time it takes to actually produce a class. On average, it takes more time to design an online course than it does to design a comparable course that will be taught face-to-face. Plan accordingly.
5. Be Strategic in Your Approach to Answering Students Questions
Once class begins, effective time management is essential when you approach the task of answering students’ questions. On the first day of each new class, start a question and answer forum as the first discussion on your class’s discussion board. If anyone has a question, they should post it in that forum. Then encourage students to answer each other’s questions. This will take much of the burden off of you in responding, although you will need to monitor the forum proactively to keep the discussion accurate and on track.
You’ll have students who email you with questions that have already been answered; instead of answering the same questions again, direct them to the place in the discussion where the question was answered.
If two or more students ask you the same question, it’s a flag that you should consider editing the course materials to include a greater level of clarification on the point they’re asking about. It’s also likely a question that should be discussed with the entire group.
You’ll find that giving some careful thought ahead of time to the differences between physical and virtual classrooms will make a big difference in smoothing your transition between the two – especially if you’re proactive about identifying and solving the obstacles to virtual success. Following these 5 suggestions can help empower you to transition gracefully from classroom teacher to online instructor.
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