Lockdowns, home-schooling, remote teaching can be some of the buzzwords during the COVID-19 pandemic. These are, in fact, not just words or expressions in the last 18 months, but some of the few aspects that have been immensely impacting on teaching and learning across the globe. Despite some lucky nations are being able to return to the normal classroom delivery, unfortunately, many teachers are still being forced to teach remotely around the world.
Learning is, traditionally, perceived to be occurred through a range of direct interactions between the teacher and students. In fact, it has been the practice for thousands of years. Therefore, alterations to the broad philosophy of teaching and learning never was easy and will never be. I personally believe that despite the pervasiveness of advanced instructional technology, and hundreds of educational gadgets, face-to-face (f2f) learning will always be valued.
The reason is simple. Learning environments are unique ecosystems, protected by strong iron rings. Therefore, external forces, such as technology, are typically perceived as a threat to the overall wellbeing of the environment, consequently, get rejected easily. However, given the current urgency created by the pandemic, we have no other option but to embrace technology to deliver lessons. Therefore, below are my top three tips for effective online learning facilitation.
1. Keep it easy and simple
Always try to keep your online course page simple and easy to use. Literature tells us that technology that are easy to use are more likely to be adopted. Therefore, whether you are using Moodle, Canvas, Blackboard, Google Classroom or any other LMS, always try to keep the subject page simple and easy to navigate. Providing clear instructions and thoughtfully choosing online tools/activities for your subject can help a lot. Remember, the fanciest tools/gadgets may not be always the effective ones! So, think about your learning objectives and learners in choosing online tools and instructions.
2. Provide meaningful feedback
As humans, we learn from communicative behaviours of others, both verbal and non-verbal. In online learning, typically students have no or limited chances of physical interactions to learn from each other. However, meaningful, and timely online feedback can do the job. It can increase learner motivation and engagement. It can also be very helpful for learners to assess their own progress and identify strengths and weaknesses. This can immensely be helpful for them to improve the overall progress in learning. It can also be helpful for teachers to pay more attention to design and redesign learning.
3. Maintain social presence
Learning is gaining a mental grasp of a concept which is often achieved through a process. In this process, social presence is one of the dimensions, and perhaps the most important one, specifically in online learning. In the absence of social presence, learners may feel that they are talking to a computer screen and would feel anxiety and sense of isolation. This can induce low levels of learning, and ultimately can yield high rates of dropouts. Therefore, do some simple things such as posting a welcome announcement, using personalised introductions, encouraging students to use personal profiles and photos, posting regular announcements, making good use of discussion forums, using web 2.0 tools such as wikis and blogs, to name a few. Again, think about your learners and choose learning tools purposefully.