What are some of the major problems that we face while teaching online?
We have all recently challenged by the online teaching without having any previous idea about it. We have faced, and we are still facing many issues. Here are some the major problems that we face while teaching online.
One of the most important issues is student's engagement. In most of the cases, online sessions are actually a lecture session that will end up by the teacher being talking to a screen. One of the things that can be done is to design the lecture in a way that involved student's more like asking challenging questions that elicit curiosity and thinking in the students or get the working in teams to let them think and work together in breakout rooms. Student's involvement is essential in online learning and to make sure that they are engaged together and with us as teachers.
Students' participation in online classes has high importance. But, how can we assess their participation and add it to their final grades? In fact, participation includes the quality of the answers students share while attending online sessions, listening to their classmates and building up or correcting their ideas, and the posts they do while answering a given question. These are things that can be taken into consideration when grading student's participation activities.
Another challenge that we face in online teaching is giving differentiated instructions for students of different learning abilities and interests. We need to make sure that the students who struggle capturing the content and who move at slower rates are also involved in the learning process. One thing that can be done is to dedicate a part of the break or free time that we have to follow up with low achievers and answer their inquiries or give them extra work to solve. It is very important to reach out for passive learners through our differentiated instructions while teaching online to make a huge difference in the life of our diverse classes.
A third problem that come along with online teaching is the amount of posts, messages, emails, and activities that are given to students. It is very difficult to read all of them and respond to every single student. As teachers, we can set a rule and make them clear for students regarding how, what, and when they can send us inquiries and make assignments clear as much as possible to avoid any misunderstanding. We should take into account how to improve our communication and ways of responses to students as we tend to be their models.
Giving feedback for student's work might take weeks and this is not what students actually expect when it is related to online learning. Our feedbacks play and essential role in students improvement as they should be done in way that should push students to learn carefully from their mistakes after doing an assignment or activity and how to improve themselves. Feedbacks should be personalized, students feel their importance to us when we do so, and they will be able to respond in their own way to our feedbacks as well.
At the end, it is important to keep in mind that whether it is face-to-face or online teaching, it is supposed to be fun for students as well us for us as teachers! Being ourselves, letting students to express themselves as well, and interacting with them give energy and life to the class and will make us all satisfied with the outcomes!
