Over the past two years, online education has proven itself to be more important than ever. When Covid-19 hit, every school, college and university was forced to suddenly move its lessons into the virtual world.
Many teachers and trainers felt ill-equipped to do this and getting the most out of the video calls was challenging. Today, we can truly see the value of our educators being able to effectively deliver their lessons online at a moment’s notice.
The pandemic will hopefully be over soon but here are a few reasons why you should still be an expert at teaching online.
Access more students
When your classroom is the internet, you are not limited by constraints of locations. You are able to teach anyone in the entire world.
If you are a private tutor, you can market your teaching to more students, increasing your experience, income and fulfillment. If you work for a school, it may open its student body up to those beyond the local region with virtual learning pathways, meaning you will enjoy a greater variety of learners and no day will be the same.
Enjoy more opportunities
When you are limited to teaching at local physical classrooms, you are limited to what particular subjects local learners want to study. You may have a specialism within the subject you teach or there may be a particular topic you want to cover. However, if no students located nearby are interested in studying these, you will not be able to make a career out of teaching them.
When you have the vast reach of the internet in your hands, you can teach many more subjects. Become a language tutor to non-English speakers, lead an online learning club, get employed by schools anywhere or launch your own teaching organisation. The possibilities are endless!
Be ready for the unexpected
If you plan on staying in the classroom, it is still very useful to know how to bring your lessons into the virtual world with the same level of engaging tutoring and the same ability to connect with your students.
As we saw in 2020, you never know when you will have to adopt new teaching approaches in the ever-evolving world of education. If you contract an illness, for example, being able to move lessons online at short notice means students’ learning does not have to be interrupted.
In addition, many schools and universities now follow a hybrid model of having some lessons in the physical classroom and others via video meeting.
Increase flexibility for you and your students
An immensely valuable part of virtual teaching is flexibility. The flexibility of online lessons takes many forms, for both you and your students.
Firstly, you can teach from anywhere. Leading lessons online from your own home enables you to be comfortable but it also means you are saving money and time you would have spent travelling into your workplace. Alternatively, you don’t need to teach from home at all. Instead, you can go travelling or visit family members and log onto your sessions when they are scheduled – all you need is WiFi!
In addition, you have more freedom to go by your own schedule. If your role involves choosing the times and dates for your tutoring sessions, you do not need to abide by when a school is open. You can teach in the evenings or on weekends, and you do not need to go through the struggle of booking available classrooms.
Your students have their own lives and problems and cannot always attend every lesson. Whereas in a physical teaching setting missing a lesson might mean they miss vital subject material, online lessons can be recorded and shared with all learners for them to rewatch and catch-up at a time that is convenient for them.
Take advantage of multimodal approaches
There are ways to boost your lesson plans within a virtual learning space. On video calls, you can share your screen and you can play videos and online activities.
You can easily send links to course materials so students have them to hand exactly when you are referring to them. Online lessons also more easily integrate with any student learning management system you are using, such as Moodle or Blackboard.
Make education accessible
Having education available in both virtual and physical spaces makes learning more accessible and hence increases global equality of opportunity.
Disabled people who struggle to make it into a school which does not accommodate their unique needs can now access their classes from their own home. Those who want to study a niche subject or achieve a certain standard of education that is not available in their region can now seek such lessons online.
Become an online teaching master with an Advanced Diploma in Training of Trainers (TOT): in E-Learning or with a Certificate in Teaching Online Courses.
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