How to Teach and Instruct Students Remotely?

Online education has always been a choice, now it is obligatory. Teachers, parents, and students are now trying to adapt themselves to the idea of remote learning. As much as it might be harder for the younger generation, the load always falls on the teachers who always have to engage their students and make sure that everything is being delivered as needed. As a “thank you” note for teachers, we would like to be helpful and offer them some ideas to help them while teaching from home.

Tips for Teaching Remotely

Remote education might not be hard especially for the older age groups who might have already tried the online courses, but it comes harder for the younger generations who are used to the idea of classes and dealing face-to-face with their teachers. Online education should always depend on how engaging the content is and how the teacher is delivering it, because that’s when the student will start to adapt to the situation.

As a teacher, you always have to be creative, fun, and friendly, and when it comes to your ideas during your online sessions, you have to let kids feel like they are at school.

• You Could Get the Students Prepared Beforehand

Choosing what you are going to teach your students or how will always depend on their age, but there is one nice technique which you could try in order to give your students the chance to be prepared and feel that the place is familiar to them. Before the online class, you could send the students some resources which they could check, it could be a video, text, podcast, pictures, or any type of content which they will study and come to the online class prepared and ready to share their ideas and views, this could happen in groups or individually.

• Try to Make the Lesson Short

Always remember that those kids are being educated from their homes on a computer screen, which might definitely get them bored so easily and quickly, and that’s why you should always consider the amount of time you are going to teach them online. Remember that making the class as long as it used to be in real school would turn out to be boring for those little students. Instead, make it 15 minutes or a little more to wrap up everything you have already sent earlier to your students through prepared videos or audio in which you have already discussed a lesson, this would be better for the students to ask the questions they have.

• Follow the “Wellness Day” Idea

COVID-19 has put the whole world under an obligatory situation and schools were forced to shut down, that’s why it was not easy at the beginning to start teaching students remotely all of a sudden. It’s important to choose one day when the class turns to be just for the wellness of the students, it could be about doing activities, collaborating with one another to achieve a goal or task, play together online, share thoughts or ideas related to the online education process, or give the students the chance to share their feelings. It’s important to be a teacher who delivers his/her subject’s content in the right way, but it’s also important to help the students feel that they are always backed up and heard as well.

• Try to Make Yourself Available Every Day at a Specific Time

Remember, a lot of students haven’t been through such situation before and some of them might not even be fans of eLearning, so try to set a specific time every single day where you could be available for any questions from the students or their parents, this would help ease the situation and keep the students and their families a little bit more calm. You could write these hours and send them through emails, include them in your schedule, or even keep them among email signatures so parents could easily know when they are allowed to contact you.

• Make Hands-on Education Part of Your Curriculum

RoboGarden believes that hands-on type of learning is the best chance for students and kids to get educated easily and remember the lessons they go through longer — as much as they keep going through them. One of the ways we believe teachers should consider when it comes to online education is the hands-on education technique. Try to choose a project which the students could complete with the resources found at their homes and which is related to the lesson you have given them and let them show you their creativity. This could be also related to gardens, parks (if your country allows people to have a walk there) or any place they might be able to enter.

• Be Available for the Students Separately

This might be considered the most important of all because personalities are not all the same and you as a teacher will deal with the introverts and the extroverts. In some cases, especially when it comes to introverts, they might find it embarrassing or not comfortable to share their thoughts or feelings with the rest of the class, they might need to do that separately, so always make yourself available to such cases, they will need your support all the time.

• Let the Students See Each Other

Every now and then, try to make the class as a video chat between all the students of the class, this will make the kids more excited about seeing their friends and will give them the feeling that they are back in school once again. Another important reason to follow this tip is to give the students the chance to share their thoughts with one another, give their comments to one another, and even collaborate with each other.

Online education, eLearning, remote teaching, homeschooling; whatever name you decide to give it, it’s what the whole world is doing right now with educating students to keep them safe as much as possible. The world of the internet is not just new to some students, but it might be new to some teachers and employees in general, they might have depended on it partially before, but not completely.

Take it easy on yourself and your students, follow the important tips, and you will find the whole process of teaching your students remotely becoming easier and more fun. You could sign up for RoboGarden and try to make coding education part of your curriculum, manage your classrooms, students, and their activities without any prior need for computer science knowledge.