With better flexibility, convenience, comfort, cost-effectiveness, and another bucket full of benefits offered, platforms to create and sell online courses are increasing rapidly. To teach online effectively and sell one online course successfully, developing and practicing the right teaching skills are very important. No matter how technology is used for online teaching, the abilities and skills of teachers hold utmost importance to provide students with an effective learning experience. Let us discuss a set of online teaching skills that all modern educators should develop and practice respectively.
Online teaching skills to develop and practice
- Effective communication
To have better learning outcomes, effective communication skills are the need of the hour. For explaining the academic course subjects well, teachers should be effective at communication. Teachers should be clear and concise when it comes to speaking skills. Having an effective command of English is important. This will make teachers more confident too. Making students focus on learning via computer or mobile screens can be challenging, however with the right communication skills, teachers can provide students with an effective academic experience.
- Technical understanding
Online teaching has been possible with the advancements in technology only. Therefore, for all modern educators, possessing basic to moderate technical understanding is necessary. Teachers should be friendly with the methods of shooting videos, recording audios, making PowerPoint presentations, and more. Other than this they should be smooth enough to conduct live sessions, and webinars and use an educational app properly. One should also try to learn how to develop an online course selling website, use social media for building a strong online community, and more.
- Subject expertise
To sell an online course effectively and provide students with a proper academic understanding, subject expertise is important for teachers. Education never ends and no one at any age is fully knowledgeable. With new research and studies every day, brushing up and adding to your existing knowledge is important for online educators. One should try to have an in-depth understanding of their teaching subject.
This will help in conducting quality live classes and video lectures for students. Also, many students have a high curiosity level. With subject expertise, you can meet students’ curiosity, answer their doubts in detail and keep them engaged with learning. Joining professional development courses, attending seminars, and exploring educational websites will help teachers in this regard.
- Time management
An online educator is surrounded by work and responsibilities all the time. To record videos, conduct live sessions, send feedback, conduct assessments, update the course website, and much more, all tasks need to be done from time to time. To be accountable and teach online effectively, teachers should have time management skills. Making to-do lists, and a weekly timetable, and sticking to them will help in timely and systematic work. Ask students to join the live sessions punctually, so that they can be ended as per the decided time only. Also make sure to take some breaks in between to give some rest to the mind, and body and ensure high work efficiency throughout.
- Engaging students
For effective teaching and learning online, maintaining proper class engagement is important. If students don’t interact much in the class, this means the teaching practices are not effective enough. Online creators must focus on developing these skills. For engaging students in the class, keep your teaching practices innovative and creative. Conduct participatory activities like online quizzes, riddles, group discussions, recitations, question-answer rounds, and debates. Have general discussions with students, keep asking questions like how is the day going, what are the plans for today, who all are excited about today’s topic, and more. This will keep students active and motivated in the classes.
- Creativity
To make students well-focused via screens, teachers need to be creative and unique. Listening to the textbook material can make students feel bored and less engaged. Therefore, online teachers should try some creative ways to teach. Practice game-based learning in the class, and use demonstrations and props to teach in live sessions. Other than this, use infographics, and video presentations to teach. You can also share real-life experiences and storytelling to keep students active and interested in learning.
Conclusion
For effective online teaching, teachers need to develop the right skills. By reading the above-mentioned information, we can make out the set of skills that every online teacher should possess and practice. This will help them to provide students with a quality academic experience, generate high learning outcomes and sell their courses effectively.