Effective Online Teaching: Obstacles And Practices

Effective Online Teaching: Obstacles And Practices

Effective Online Teaching: Obstacles And Practices

Obstacles And Practices For Effective Online Teaching 

The modern world tends to change so rapidly that we barely have the chance to analyze what we have to change in order to adapt. Today we’re facing a new era in education… a new reality that will soon change the face of learning for good. Welcome to the newest educational trend: Online learning (or eLearning). If you are reading this article, you’re most likely a traditional face-to-face educator that seeks advice on how to shift from traditional tearning to eLearning. You won’t be surprised to hear that online teaching and learning is quickly taking over, and that you really need to adapt if you want to transition to this new(ish) trend.

There are several good reasons for which students all across the world decide that it’s best for them to dump the normal classes and start eLearning courses and faculties in order to get their degrees. If you were wondering why… here’s why:

Because of this massive shift, teachers now need to turn their attention towards this new trend. Unfortunately, online teaching is different in so many ways. Traditional teachers now have to learn new ways of approaching their teaching methodologies, and also learn new practices in order to be successful at what they do.

In this article you will discover few great insights on how to better yourself when you want to step up into this “new game”.

You Must Acquire New Skills

If you want to teach other people, you must first teach yourself. Maybe you are content with your teaching abilities, but that’s not enough if you want to be a good online teacher. In order to improve your teaching performance and successfully adapt to eLearning, you should decide to attend some courses and web-seminars.

Here are some good resources that you want to check out:

  1. Online Learning Consortium, former Sloan Consortium is one of the oldest and most efficient online teaching programs.  This training program offers a great variety of choices for beginner online educators, and it’s considered to be the most qualitative service on the market. A great benefit you’ll get by attending it – you receive an recognized certificate, which will help you big time in the future. Prices range from $149 to $599.
  2. University of Wisconsin-Stout: Also offers an online teaching certificate that can be gained by following four courses, each 8 weeks long. The final exam is an practicum, accompanied by future career mentoring and job placement help.
  3. The International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL) is a non-profit organization meant to help online teachers expand their horizons – and it all comes cheap. They offer four types of webinars, which are completely free for paying members.

In addition, acquiring technology skills is a must. Learning how to use new online tools and software can significantly increase your productivity and the way you evaluate your students. E-lecta.com for example is an online teaching and training software that lets you conduct live online classes and web meetings anywhere, and at any time.

Online Education: New Mindset And Teaching Methods

The differences between traditional teaching and online teaching are quite revealing. It’s one thing to look at your student’s face and communicate with him using your body language and tonality, and another to communicate by just typing letters on your keyboard, or seeing him on a webcam. That is why a new eLearning teacher needs to adapt to this new environment.

 Get To Know Each Of Your Students

When you are teaching online, you’ll come across different nationalities and cultures. This toughens the teaching process because every student is different in his own way, and follows different principles in life. Before communicating and teaching online, your main concern should be who you’re teaching, and how you can improve your way of teaching according to the differences that exist between your students.

You need to be aware that some cultures value things differently, see certain actions differently, and overall perceive the world differently. If you want to be efficient for all of your students, no matter their nationality or culture, you must speak to each of them in private. Get to know them, understand their biggest problems and concerns, and strive to offer them a solution.  You also can see what every student needs, looking for their help resources portals, like scholaradvisor.com.

This is a common issue that many online teachers ignore, and they wonder why their results aren’t as promising as they expect. Each student is different…In a classroom, you can notice them, observe their problems, and guide them immediately. On the internet…not so easy. Do not ignore this tip, and make sure to connect with each of your students.

Conclusion

As you’ve noticed, the face of education is quickly changing. And with it, we educators must also change our ways of thinking and teaching in order to adapt. The first, and the most important step, is to realize that there are significant differences between traditional learning and eLearning. Second, we must realize and become aware of that in order to efficiently teach online, we must work on ourselves.

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