Online teachers bring learning to people instead of people to learning.
“Online learning is rapidly becoming one of the most cost-effective ways to educate the world’s rapidly expanding workforce”, Jack Messman, former CEO at Novell. This quote is of absolute relevance because the world is changing at a very rapid pace and online learning is for sure an integral part of it.
Online teacher: A bridge between students and learning
Conventional methods of learning and teaching are no doubt great but now we have to rely on online teaching as well, especially at times of the Covid-19 global pandemic. Online teachers play a great role in improving this unorthodox method of teaching. In this article, we will put light on the life of an online teacher and will discuss various aspects related to it.
Online teachers often get quizzical looks about their working styles. For a teacher who is trying his/her best to teach students, such looks are quite frustrating sometimes. But it takes the same amount of work, rather, more in some cases, as compared to an offline teacher to teach students in online mode.
Advantages of teaching online
There are multiple advantages associated with online teaching. A few of them are mentioned below:
- Enhances digital literacy: Innovative technologies can be used in the case of online teaching like storyboarding, animation, games etc. so that over time its continuous use can increase the digital literacy of the instructor/teacher and also students can easily grasp the concepts.
- New assessment methods: Currently, various automated software’s are available using which evaluation of assessments can be made easy. These are very useful in case of those questions which involve factual understanding like for example Multiple choice questions.
- More opportunities for interaction: A teacher can remain connected with students all over the globe through various facetime applications which are possible in the case of online learning only.
- Numerous sources: Millions of digital libraries, videos and other technological help is available in the case of online teaching. A teacher can access them in case of some kind of reference topics so that a detailed explanation can be prepared for the students.
Disadvantages of the same
Having these many advantages does not mean there are no demerits of online teaching. Few disadvantages for online teachers include:
- A student needs to attend a few lectures only. But for a teacher, he/she has to teach many classes one after another which results in continuous screen time and that is very harmful to eyes as well as other physical problems may also occur. Moreover, this increases at the time of evaluation of assessments and that too for so many students.
- Other disadvantages include technology issues like non-availability of the internet, system issues etc. Sometimes teachers are from remote areas where this problem can continue for 3-5 days or even more.
Online teachers have to go through various additional tests apart from their qualifications to prove themselves worthy of teaching in online mode. Apart from this, other things include:
- Updates: Online teachers need to update their systems and teaching software regularly to ensure efficient learning for students.
- Strategies: Every day brings a new challenge for online teachers as they have to renew their teaching strategies from time to time so that every student can relate to their teaching.
- Busy: Since students are free to call, text or submit their assessments 24/7 there is never a time for online teachers when there is nothing to do.
- No social life: Moreover, online teachers are having negligible time for their personal lives because they are continuously involved in various meetings like team meetings, departmental meetings etc. to help students in every possible way.
Strategies for online teachers to address challenges
- To increase comfort in the use of technology teachers must speak to those colleagues which are already teaching online or they can take help of videos
- Redesign of course is very important because in some cases activities and goals designed for a face-to-face class can fall apart.
- Setting up a community of learners for discussion is very important to maintain continuous interaction with students.
- For some exceptional students especially, trouble-makers one-to-one personal sessions can be conducted to discuss their issues and problems to make teaching more convenient and easier.
Key Takeaways
Be it offline or online teachers are always important to shape the future of students. Students need to understand that teachers are also humans and must respect them and avoid making fun of them. Online teaching especially is a very hectic and tiresome task so it should be admired and teachers should be given time for their personal and social life. As far as teachers are concerned, they must take these classes in a jolly manner so that they can keep their mood relaxed.
Also published on Medium.