Due to the current confinement situation in which the entire world found it necessary to implement digital resources to access education or carry out work remotely, classes in Tutor hunt procedures in the UK are taught over the Internet with a teacher in line who follows up on students and accompanies them in their virtual learning.

However, this solution of online classes for many colleges and universities has not been an easy task. Students of different levels have had their classes interrupted by the coronavirus. The closure of schools and universities affected more than 89% of the world's students, that is, 1.54 billion boys, girls, and young people, UNESCO recently announced. With this, more than 60 million teachers stopped teaching in the classroom.

You may be interested in: Actions to be a good online teacher

With the best intentions, and in many cases with training and technological support, teachers were asked to migrate their courses to the virtual modality in record time, causing this format to increase anxiety among students, as the lack of experience on the part of teachers in the face of digital changes.

Therefore, from CognosOnline in the company of Tutor Connect, we want to share a series of tips that will make you a good online teacher, leaving behind that teacher who only reads slides and loves PDF files.

Teaching asynchronously

It is already more than clear that face-to-face learning will be interrupted for more than a few weeks. That being the case, we encourage you to teach your classes asynchronously, meaning that instead of live webinars, you provide your students with lecture videos, which they can watch at any time of the day or night. There are many advantages to asynchronous learning. It provides greater flexibility to students during a time of crisis and allows them to review lectures multiple times. For faculty, developing lecture videos can be a real-time saver, especially for those teaching multiple sections of the same course.

Keep course navigation simple and obvious

Everything is harder for online students. Communication is slower. The distractions are greater. The best gift you can give your students is to make the learning process simple and clear. Navigation should be evident. One suggestion is to make a short video titled “Start Here” that shows students exactly how the course is presented. This will provide support for students who begin teaching a new virtual course or semester.

Keep your classes short

We know that you have designed the slides for your classes to last one or two hours, in this case, it is best to divide that content into small shorter groups, it will benefit both you and your students. When students work online, they don't just sit at the computer for 50 minutes and then come back two days later for the next class.

Students consume content at different rates in different amounts during different time intervals. Short walk-through videos allow students to zoom out and then come back and pick up where they left off. Shorter videos simplify content review for students.

The accompanying videos between the slides are a great benefit for instructors, as they complement the content presented on the slides, reinforcing students' knowledge.

Use simple technology

Technology is amazing, but it often causes problems for teachers and even students. Solving technology problems remotely for 30 students is a nightmare. If you are the one causing the problem with an overly technical task, you need to consider whether the tools you use can be simplified. In online classes, we should always strive to use the simplest technology possible to get work done, even if that means students are taking cell phone photos of hand-drawn work and uploading them for you to grade.

Think creatively in laboratories

One of the great challenges when implementing virtual classes was the implementation of the laboratories since university professors have been seen saying that they believe that science laboratories cannot be taught online. Well, we are here to tell you that, if possible, it is worth clarifying that online lab activities look different than traditional lab activities, but they are no less high quality.

Communication failures

With online classes, maintaining communication is relevant, but without saturating with tasks and messages. It is necessary to listen to the needs of the students (for example, through surveys) and give clear and simple instructions of what is expected in each assignment, however, if students receive 20 messages and as many assignments per day from their teachers, the dynamic It will not be sustainable.