Distance Learning is a popular choice for many college students these days. What could be more convenient than taking a college course from the comfort of your home (or dorm … or office …) computers?
And teaching online requires different skills and expectations than teaching in a classroom. Many faculty members are hesitant to learn these skills. Simply putting a few notes and other materials from a classroom does not make for a very effective online experience.
While distance learning has grown tremendously over the last few years, it is still relatively new means of instruction.
What are the 3 most important skills that you need to be a truly outstanding online teacher?
1) You must communicate frequently with the students.
Frequent communication does NOT mean that you must be online every hour of every day. Rather than teaching in a 2-4 hour blocks in a single day, like you would with many college classes, spend 15-45 minutes a day answering emails and monitoring your online course. At the end of the week, the time spent teaching online should be similar to the amount of time spent teaching in a classroom.
2) Be organized & be clear
Let students know how often you will be online, so they don’t expect an immediate response regardless of the time of day. The more students know ahead of time, the less time you’ll spend responding to problems.
3) Engage the students in the learning
Teaching online offers the opportunity to reach students in many different ways – projects, discussions, comparing ideas, sharing knowledge with other students. Without the confines of time that are present in a campus course, and with the ability to share and discuss ideas online, not making good use of these opportunities leads to lost “learning moments”.
There is no better way to learn how to teach online than to learn online – so, before you decide to teach online, take an online course yourself.
You’ll understand what it is like to learn from a distance, without an instructor standing in front of you. You’ll understand what it is like to have to wait for answers to your questions. And you’ll learn more about how the technology can HELP you teach.
You certainly DO NOT need to be a technical expert to teach online. You should be:
Some will say there is no substitute for seeing the student’s faces. Others will realize that many students will flourish because they have more time to prepare thoughtful answers, and won’t be fearful of speaking up in front of a large group.
- aware that becoming an effective online teacher takes some time (often several courses).
- ready to spend some time setting up your course for the first time
- familiar with receiving and sending email
- comfortable with the Internet
- excited about learning a new skill that will help you!
Teaching online can be very exciting, and very rewarding, as long as you are prepared!
Rather than teaching in a 2-4 hour blocks in a single day, like you would with many college classes, spend 15-45 minutes a day answering emails and monitoring your online course. At the end of the week, the time spent teaching online should be similar to the amount of time spent teaching in a classroom.
Let students know how often you will be online, so they don’t expect an immediate response regardless of the time of day. Teaching online offers the opportunity to reach students in many different ways – projects, discussions, comparing ideas, sharing knowledge with other students. Without the confines of time that are present in a campus course, and with the ability to share and discuss ideas online, not making good use of these opportunities leads to lost “learning moments”.
