7 App-solute Online Teaching Hacks.

Since “The Virus”, dragged 2030 to 2020 — as a teacher I had to ramp up my act overnight. When lockdown began on 25th Mar in India, I had to transition to online teaching fast — or I would be be loosing business to Byjus and Vadantus of the world!

In this article, I am going to share what I have learnt in the last 9 months of teaching online to Middle / High school kids. I ‘m also as a parent whose kid is attending Online classes — so I have the view from both sides of the table.

This is my rebirth as an Online Tutor 😊.

Children are stressed

It’s stating the obvious. School was a big release for kids — away from parents, away from confines of home, … Without having their friends to interact with the cold blue stare of laptop screens gets borrring.

As an online teacher, I keep reminding this to myself. And at times discipline / HW takes a backseat.

Keep Communication Two-Way

When kids were sitting in front of me, I could pickup non-verbal cues and check whether a kid was in sync with me. Now it’s just a face on the screen.

So a steady two-way communication keeps the lecture alive.

End of the day, we are dealing with 14 year olds who have an attention span of a fish.

Have Fun

I teach Maths and Science on zoom — so I share YouTube videos ( TV documentaries / Physics & Chemistry experiments) online during lectures, and google photographs realtime to keep them involved.

Of course Instagram memes help when teaching Calculus!

Give them HW

For the kids who doze of, I make them repeat the questions that have been discussed in the lecture.

As most of my lectures are uploaded on YouTube, I ask them to review and Whatsapp me the HW scan.

Keep Recordings

I have uploaded around +300 lectures online since March. Beside being a content inventory it helps my students whenever they are facing any issue —months after the live lecture.

Use Good Equipment

These kids are exposed to slick YouTube videos made by 20 something masters of YouTube. It doesn’t help me — if my student watches me scrawl on the screen using a mouse.

Exercise

Else the stress will take it’s toll.

Or takeup a new hobby!

I hope you find these inputs useful. We are in this for some time more — it helps all of us to learn the Digital Way of Life.