2020 will be marked by the COVID-19 pandemic and the sudden increase in the demand for online teaching. Moving your classes from the classroom into the online world is challenging. You need to find a way to maintain the quality of the lessons while adapting them to the newly created circumstances. You also have to reconsider the materials you’re using and potentially create new educational content.
So, if you’re willing to learn more about creating educational content that is suitable for online teaching, we’ve got your back. In the guide below, you’ll find the essential steps you need to take to create brilliant educational content for teaching online.
Let’s take a closer look together.
Table of Contents
1. Prioritize
When it comes to teaching online, the first thing you need to learn how to do is to prioritize. You need to find a way to adapt to the new teaching environment. And teaching online means:
- facing troubles with sound, video, or connection
- having less time to talk
- limitation in terms of interaction with your students
The educational materials you used to work with need to be reduced so that you teach:
- the most important information
- concisely
This is why, when creating educational content for online teaching, you need to focus on the point of each lesson and make sure you summarize it properly.
This will help both you and your students communicate better and make better results at the end of each lesson.
2. Use Visuals
When your students are in the classroom, it’s easy for you to keep them interested, focused, and active. But, when it comes to teaching online, this might be an issue.
When all your students are seeing is your face on the screen, or the written materials you’ve prepared, they’re bound to get bored soon.
This is why, in online teaching, we highly recommend that you use visuals such as:
- images
- videos
- infographics
- drawings
- GIFs
Anything that would make your students pay better attention and process the information you’re serving them is acceptable.
3. Share Useful Tools
To help your students acquire the knowledge properly, you should include some useful links in your online teaching materials.
These links to various tools, services, and reviews of companies, should be placed there to give them a hand with the lesson in question.
It could be linked to anything you find useful:
- online resources
- reading materials
- tutorials
- how-to-videos
- Google Docs
- Dropbox files
Include all the useful materials you can to ensure your students have everything they need and more.
4. Aim For Simplicity
For each lesson you’re teaching online, you should create materials you’ll share with your students. The materials will summarize the things you’ve covered in the lesson.
To make sure these materials work for all your students, you need to always aim for simplicity.
Here’s what we have in mind:
- use simple sentence structures
- divide the materials using subheadings
- use everyday vocabulary that each student will understand
- highlight the most important information using bold
Remember, you’re creating materials that need to speak to the strongest and the weakest link in your class.
5.Plan the Interaction
Another thing that you need to include in your online teaching materials is the student-teacher or student-student interaction.
Interaction is a great way for the students to memorize and embrace the materials and have a better understanding of the subject matter.
This is why you need to plan the interaction in your teaching materials:
- interactive exercises
- discussions
- questions you’ll ask
- debates
- assignments
Think about the best ways to involve, include, and motivate your students, using materials that imply their active participation and mutual interaction.
6. Be Ready for the Unexpected
As a teacher, you need to understand that not everything is going to go according to your lesson plans.
Most teachers consider their lesson plans to be just a guide, while they focus on the actual course of the lesson and adapt to what’s happening.
This is why you always have to be ready for the unexpected:
- you finish all your exercises 10 minutes before the lesson ends
- you don’t have enough time
- students are having a hard time understanding a part of the lesson
There can be numerous ups and downs during a single lesson. Make sure you always have a plan B and if you don’t- get ready to improvise.
Final Thoughts
Teaching online is a challenge for everyone- the teachers, the students, and even their parents. Still, as the teacher, you are responsible for the quality of each lesson and the results your students make.
Hopefully, the tips we’ve shared above will help you create the best educational content for online teaching. Start using them ASAP and improve the quality of your online lessons.