Many schools and teachers have struggled to adapt to remote teaching in recent times as a result of COVID-19. It has certainly created challenges for all educational facilities, but remote teaching is the future and can bring benefits to all parties. It can take some getting used to, but remote teaching can be effective and a great way to educate people of all ages when you know how to do so. With this in mind, read on for a few tips that should help to improve your remote teaching abilities and ensure that your students do not suffer as a result of learning remotely.
Top Tips For Successful Remote Teaching
Make Yourself Available
One of the biggest challenges when it comes to remote learning is that students often feel disconnected and unsupported. It is vital that you make yourself available for your students, so make sure that they know the best way to contact you and try to offer individual support where you can – chat platforms are ideal for this. Additionally, if you notice that a student is struggling, do not wait for them to reach out and instead be proactive.
Use Audio Description Tools
Leading on from this, you should also use an audio description tool so that those with low vision can feel more connected and engaged with your lessons. Audio descriptions provide an explanation of what is happening on screen when there is no dialogue. These tools provide equal opportunities to succeed by making sure that all teaching materials are accessible. Offering this to students can make you a more appealing teaching facility, so make sure to look into this as soon as you can.
Make Lessons Brief But More Frequent
If you are able to, it is helpful to make your lessons short but more frequent as opposed to long lessons of 1 hour+. People’s attention spans will be shorter when it comes to remote learning, so “chunk” learning is often more effective and will stop people from losing their concentration during lessons.
Make Lessons Fun & Engaging
Following on from this, you also need to try and make your lessons as fun and engaging as possible. It will be very hard for someone to pay full attention to an hour-long lecture, so try to find ways to make your online learning more engaging. This might include games, activities and discussions so that people will feel a part of the lesson as opposed to simply watching.
Encourage Autonomy
Remote learning has its benefits, but it does pose challenges that are hard to overcome. It is a smart idea to encourage autonomy so that your students do not have to constantly be sat in front of a computer screen during a live lesson. Providing assignments and then giving people the freedom to do their own work can make remote learning much easier for all, but this does mean that you need to be able to keep track of their progress and provide ongoing feedback.
These tips should help anyone teaching remotely to find success. It certainly has its challenges regardless of the age group, but remote learning can also be effective when you know-how.
