Online Teaching - Some Tips And Thoughts!

@hrastro,

I am a big fan of your contributions here in IL and regularly read all your posts. @Rihana has a knack for finding your posts and nominate them first before Vijiakka and I could do that. Overall, all the committee members are very happy to see your posts being nominated.

Regarding this particular thread, I am awestruck by your detailing of how you conduct online classes. I am sure this will be extremely useful to many teachers. I only conduct character development classes for 12-17-year-old students. I provide a detailed syllabus to the parents before the academic year and divide the academic year into trimester 1-3, the 4th being summer holidays. Each Trimester has 10-11 classes. Sometimes, I do Summer Programs for those who sign up. Like you, I also provide the class content on Monday or Tuesday, if the class is on Thursday or Friday, and ask the children to review the content before the class. In every class, I walk them through the content and have them ask questions if they have any. At the end of the class, they will have a flash quiz with the help of Kahoot to determine how much of what I taught in the class has been grasped by the students. Even though my classes are not part of their regular academic program, I can't explain in words how much interest the children show in learning about spiritual values and building their character. This year, I have covered, Healthy mind, introspection, service as a spiritual discipline, stress management, time management, social-media habits and addictions, etc. in the first two trimesters. In the current trimester, I am covering character enhancement that includes, healthy thoughts, humility, integrity, honesty, responsibility, fairness, forgiveness, courageousness, self-discipline, etc.

Since the topic is about building character and learning spiritual principles, from time to time, I ask them to do life applications that would involve some practicals giving them a chance to either self-analyze or learn something from their social interactions. One life application was called, "What is in my wardrobe?" bringing awareness about how to avoid wastage by buying everything that is attractive as opposed to what is needed. Second life application is about nutritious food, cooking them by selecting ingredients and practicing a healthy diet, etc. The third life application is about writing their ambition and then find out how they are using 24 hours in a day to meet those ambitions. The fourth life application is about equanimity and peace and understanding what kind of attitude and temperament helps them achieve equanimity and peace. This exercise includes understanding their positive and negative emotions and when they excessively celebrate and when they feel the pain all alone.

I brought in a discipline that the children should let me know in advance if they were going to miss the class. So far, not many miss these classes and if they were to miss one or two due to conflict with their school, they not only write to me in advance but also go through the syllabus and catch up with their lesson on their own.

 

Dear HR

very valuable information on online teaching (in general good pointers to passionate volunteer Teachers as well ). Extremely useful post.

Other tools that I have found helpful are
NearPod
Quizlet
Google slides (I am amazed how much can be achieved with this)
Flipgrid
Whiteboard in Flipgrid as well as zoom
Edutopia lists more apps as well.

online teaching has opened up new challenges and teachers have to adapt to new ways to teach. Thanks for sharing your experience and knowledge