Campus Review Vol 30. Issue 08 - Aug 2020 | Seite 26

ON CAMPUS
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Leading online
One academic shares some
strategies for successful
online teaching.
By Tasadduq Imam
With the COVID-19 crisis,
universities across the world
have turned to distance
delivery. If you are an academic habituated
with face-to-face delivery, this shift may
have been a challenge.
Teaching for student satisfaction
and success in a distance learning
environment requires more than a
translation of face-to-face approaches and
materials to online mode.
Such is my experience from leading and
teaching finance subjects in both distance
and face-to-face modes at CQUniversity for
over eight years. In my role, I have practised
a set of strategies, motivated by reflection
and research, that have attained positive
student feedback, learning enjoyments and
success, and multiple institutional teaching
awards and commendations.
Here, I share those practices that
you may also consider for your online
teaching context.
CHANGE THE MINDSET: ONLINE
TEACHING IS A FORM OF VIRTUAL
LEADERSHIP
Imagine working in a business setting
where you are the leader, and all your team
members are in different locations. You are
unlikely to meet most of them face-to-face.
Yet, as research notes, your success as a
leader in such a virtual setting will depend
on how well you communicate with your
members and how well you develop an
environment of inclusiveness.
Teaching online is no different from
leading online. As a professor or a unit
coordinator, you are the leader, and your
students and associated teaching team are
your followers.
For our university teaching roles, we
train to consider various adult learning
theories. Besides that, online teaching
requires consideration of effective virtual
leadership strategies.
Thus, go beyond viewing yourself only
as an educator and embrace your role as
a virtual leader, which leads to the next set
of strategies.
KNOW YOUR STUDENT AND
CUSTOMISE YOUR APPROACH AND
RESOURCES
What is the attribute of a good leader?
Among many attributes, a good leader
understands the sentiment of his or her
followers while keeping an open mind.
As a leader within a virtual context,
similarly try to know and understand your
students – what they are good at, what
factors cause them to struggle, what
diversities exist among them, and how to
shape delivery to meet their needs.
At CQUniversity for my taught finance
subjects, students come from various
academic majors. They have different
background skills, and they take my subject
either as a core or an optional part of their
study. Thus, finance subjects, involving both
advanced mathematics and theories, can
appear challenging to them if they have
not studied such technical subjects or the
relevant mathematical concepts before.
Further, some students are longtime
professionals, while others lack
professional experience, and they come
from various geographic contexts. Thus,
their learning needs and style differ.
This high diversity among students may
be a situation familiar to you as well. There
is no one size fits all approach to cater
for this diversity. But, just using textbooks
and typical resources, which often target
a particular audience, may not lead to the
best learning outcomes.
For my teaching context, I use
customised slides – slides that cover not
only finance materials but also background
that typical discipline textbooks assume as
prerequisite knowledge. Finance textbooks,
for example, show equations involving
logarithms and Euler’s constant. In my
slides, I explain in easily understandable
terms what these are and how to
determine them before covering the
related concepts. From experience, I find
similar extensions of discipline resources
with background knowledge beneficial to
cater for student diversity.
Textbooks are also often technical. We
educators discuss hard concepts with
examples and metaphors in our lectures.
But, when providing written resources, we
often follow the same technical nature
as in textbooks. I find it is useful to also
incorporate layman style explanations
in written resources. This customisation
appeals to students who may not be math
savvy or for whom a vivid picture of what
is going on can cause more effective
understanding than that possible from
reviewing abstract technical materials only.
Some online students are selfmotivated,
while others require regular
interventions. Thus, just uploading
materials and remaining passive may not
lead to good learning outcomes. I find
creating self-assessment quizzes with
customised feedback, hosting discussion
sessions separate from regular lectures,
and arranging one-to-one sessions ondemand
as effective interventions for my
online class.
Assessment design in an online setting
also needs some thought. The questions
should not only test the students’ skills
and knowledge but also engage them
with learning resources. As learning
theory acknowledges, some students learn
from experience – questions connecting
to real-world complexities will appeal to
them. Other students learn from abstracts
and concepts. From experience, there
should be a balance between assessment
questions focused on real-life settings
and those testing discipline knowledge.
Overemphasising or lacking sufficient focus
on either can lead to dissatisfaction and
incomplete learning.
In feedback, using rubrics and
constructive commenting are customary,
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