Rizwan Alam

Researcher

Research Area: Technology Enhanced Learning(TEL)

Are you ready to teach online during COVID-19 Lockdown?

Most of the educational institutions are closed in India and other countries also during COVID-19 lockdown and teachers are instructed from the organization to conduct online classes. Some teachers already started some activities of taking online classes or sharing study materials online to the students. But, a lot of teachers are still thinking about what and how to do regarding online classes. So, here we are going to discuss important things related to conducting online classes that will help teachers to conduct effective online classes.

We will try to explore the answer of following questions related to conducting online classes during COVID-19 Lockdown in India.

1.  Why do we need to conduct online classes?
2.  What do we mean by online classes?
3.  What are the basic dos and don'ts of conducting online classes?
4.  What extra things can be done due to COVID-19?

1. Why do we need to conduct online classes?

As during COVID-19 Lockdown, most of the educational institutions in India are closed. But, during this duration of  lockdown a portion of syllabus could be completed by conducting online classes that will help teachers to cover the syllabus after reopening of educational institutions consequently conducting exams on time and it will also maintain the flow of study of the students in addition to the fact that students will be engaged in studies during this lockdown phase.

2. What do we mean by online classes?

By online classes, we mean conducting teaching and learning sessions with the help of ICT in which the Internet is an important player. Nowadays we have a lot of opensource LMS solutions  like Moodle, Edmodo, Google classroom, Chamlio, and Canvas.

It may be in the form of informing students through e-mail or WhatsApp about the time and topic of online class and streaming ur video tutorial live on youtube. After the tutorial, u can clear doubts of students on WhatsApp group chatting. Followed by sharing related assignments on Google classroom.

3. What are the basic dos and don’ts of conducting online classes?

Dos:

• Collect e-mail id and contact number of all the students and create a group of students in LMS through which you want to conduct online classes.
• Prepare yourself well before the actual online class. It is better you do rehearsals of your class offline first.  
• Check all the necessary equipment and services like the internet, laptop, and camera before your session.
• Be ready with the assignments that you want to share after your online class like a list of questions related to the topic.
• You may also involve one or two students as volunteers to help you to pass important information about the online session to other students in the group if required. It will reduce your workload of updating information to each and every student that may be beneficial in conveying last-minute changes if any.
• You may inform all the students about instructions required for conducting online class smooth and fruitful.
• During online session you may give proper breaks if required that students will get time to think about the topic and frame their questions as doubts.
• It is better to keep your class short or a series of short  sessions  but it depends on various parameters like the topic, the participation of students and teaching plan.
• You may ask a few open-ended questions related to the topic during the online session to make students more responsive.
• Encourage students not only to ask their queries or doubts related to the topic but also to answer the questions asked by their peers. You may set up an online discussion forum also for this.
• Post the assignments just after your session and announce the details in your session.
• Take feedback from the students. It will help you to know their point of view about the session.

Don'ts:

• Don’t be too formal especially if you are familiar with the students.
• Don’t postpone or cancel a class without any strong reason.

4. What extra can be included in tutorials due to COVID-19?

• During your online class you may request students to wash their hands properly after regular intervals.
• You may share template or poster regarding precautionary steps for COVID-19 published by WHO or Government in your tutorial.
• Sharing some positive quotes with your tutorial.