5 Key Strategies for Taking Your Teaching Online

The decisions to start school with remote learning are starting to come in across the country, and many teachers are scrambling to figure out how to take their curriculum online without losing the academic rigor needed for student growth.

Here are a few key strategies from Teacher to Teacher for taking your teaching online:

1. Create meaningful relationships with students and parents.

Put together a tutorial for parents that equips them with the essential skills needed to facilitate learning at home. Make sure to include access to the learning program you will be using. Explain your classroom expectations, routines, instruction delivery, and grading policy for assignments. It is also important to teach e-safety recommendations during your tutorial.

There are a couple of ways to do this tutorial via Zoom: record yourself walking through the steps of logging on and provide a tour of your online classroom or record the tutorial with parents so that they can get answers to their questions. Send the link via email to your parents.

 2. Clear communication and planning are ways to reduce the anxiety and fears of students and parents.

Create a system for regular communication. This could be a weekly agenda email, newsletter, or Zoom meeting. The key to success is to be consistent and create a system that allows all stakeholders to be heard. One of the lessons learned last spring was the difficulties of keeping active engagement among students. Many parents voiced concerns and felt "unheard" by the school districts, principals, and teachers. Open communication is important to recruit parents and carers as educational partners.

3. Do NOT expect to replicate your face-to-face instructional program online. 

This is an opportunity to be creative. Offer your students opportunities to showcase their learning with diverse instruction, assignments, games, and assessments. Try using breakout rooms for collaborative learning. Record the instructional delivery of your lessons so that students can go back and review them.

Educational experts maintain giving priority to project-based learning that not only takes into account students’ interests and likes but also moves them away from their screens. 

Concentrate your unit designs on your core standards. A learning gap has been created with the rush to online learning in the spring, and many teachers are concerned that students will not be at grade level when school resumes. Think about ways to scaffold learning to build students' confidence.

Assign students with the task of developing lessons for their classmates; for example, divide your lesson unit into groupings by assigning each group a figure of speech or part of speech, multiplication exercises or mathematical word problems, the periodic table or scientific discoveries, historical figures or sections from primary documents, the color wheel or artistic mediums, etc.. Students have greater participation when they have the freedom to create and engage with new content.

4. Make teaching and learning FUN!

Think outside the box when you are preparing to take your teaching online. There are fantastic stories of teachers around the globe using creativity and fun to teach their students; for example, use your interests and talents to create lessons. Imagine playing the guitar while students write a song to learn and review content...remember Schoolhouse Rocks? Memorable songs continue to help students; my personal favorites include Conjunction Junction and I'm Just a Bill; however, there were other episodes that included multiplication and science.

Have you thought about dressing up in a costume as you deliver your lessons? How about dressing as a character from a story, a figure from history, or an inspiring artist? Playing an interesting role engages students and encourages participation and retention of content.

Get your students moving. Many teachers shared stories of using scavenger hunts to get young students engaged. Writing prompts can include the students' homeschool environment; for example, to teach writing and setting, start by having students write a detailed description of one room in their house. This draft becomes one writing piece for a personal portfolio that can be revised and edited. Then, have them go back and rewrite the description of the same room using their five senses, a male or female perspective, and with the setting as an animated cartoon,  crime, adventure, or fantasy scene. 

Another assignment that's popular is the paper bag speech. Have students gather 3-5 items that can be used for props in introducing themselves. Explain that they should have a beginning, middle, and an end to the speech. As they talk, they will work each prop into their introduction. This has always been a fun activity during face-to-face learning, but can easily be brought to an online platform.

One creative teacher had themed days. The students would all show up on Zoom wearing the same color clothes, pajamas, or a hat; eating donuts, toast, or yogurt; dressed as a character or animal. 

5. Practice and teach essential self-care skills.

These uncertain times are creating additional anxiety for our students, parents, and ourselves...it's almost like waiting for the other shoe to drop. This is a time to pay attention to some fundamental practices: hygiene, washing our hands, social distancing, and communication skills. We must use empathic listening, learn to respond rather than react, and practice self-discipline. 

As a practitioner of the Indian Proverb A House With Four Rooms, I advocate for doing something daily for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being. A simple walk in nature has the ability to nurture all of these areas of our lives. Keeping a personal journal to record thoughts, activities, gratitude, and dreams is also a wonderful practice. Learning breathing exercises, yoga, and meditation practices also nurture the heart, mind, body, and spirit. 

When you make self-care a priority, you will feel more confident, self-assured, and in control. There's so much in life that you do not have control over, but you are the master of you, and your self-care practices are your own responsibility. Isn't this what you want for your students, too?

The discussion shouldn't be debating whether online learning is as good as face-to-face learning, it needs to shift to making all learning experiences valuable, rigorous, and effective for ALL students. It includes ways to develop lessons using several modalities and delivery systems: pdf worksheets, infographics, organizers, ebooks, workbooks, video, audio, portfolio, phone, online, in-person, etc..

Get creative and share your ideas with me at [email protected].

Until next time,

Lisa