I know engagement is key to a successful lesson and I have always prioritised capturing the attention of students in my physical classroom. However, the online environment has changed the whole dynamic. Quite often, I can’t see my students’ facial expressions to determine whether they have understood something I have just explained. I teach physics, a scaffolding subject, where understanding the concept and applying that concept with knowledge to an unfamiliar context is the key. Without face-to- face interaction, it was proving difficult for me to measure the students’ level of comprehension.
I was learning it is indeed a fact that online teaching does not allow us to interact or engage with our students at the same level as face-to-face, but it does allow us to transfer more learning responsibility to our students with careful supervision. I know every subject is different; to be taught with different approaches. But the core of teaching and learning remains the same; engage learners, address individual needs and meet learning outcomes.
Keeping that in mind, I adjusted my teaching strategy by giving my learners frequent breaks during the lesson, keeping them busy with activities such as coming up with answers to small problems during the lesson and allowing them to demonstrate their findings or solutions to the class online.
Recent research suggests that the success of online delivery depends on two key factors; the format of the lecture and the structure of the learning communityŧ.
In terms of the format of the lecture, it is suggested we do the following:
Engage our students by dividing lectures into shorter sequences.
Check comprehension by asking quick questions to test whether students have understood the key lesson of the short lecture segment.
Walk through step-by-step examples.
Maximize access to material for students.
For the formation of our learning community, we could:
Encourage students to take advantage of discussion-based features on our learning platform MOODLE.
Use office hours to engage students in a more informal setting.
Encourage students to keep in touch with each other.
This is new territory and every day we are facing new challenges and learning new things. What we need most at this time is the of sharing good practices and a bit of creative thinking. I hope we will soon overcome these challenges to ensure ongoing success with online teaching and learning at Navitas.
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