Online Teaching: Silver Linings
A few of my highlights from teaching students online.
While I think any educator, student and/or parent can come to the agreement that being in school is best for children academically, socially and emotionally, in looking back there were a few positives to teaching online.
1) A new found respect for students’ home lives
As a teacher we do have some understanding of what a child goes home to each day, but online teaching has been quite eye-opening. From having no wifi in the house to younger siblings crying in the background of lessons on equivalent fractions; students were still attending live lessons, still asking questions and still submitting all of their work.
2) Student responsibility
It was during a few online (of course) parent-teacher meetings that I was made aware of how some students were able to take a greater responsibility for their own learning. Parents talked about how they noticed great changes in their child’s approach to learning as they were seeing their child get themselves ready for their online classes and managing their online submissions on their own. While parents expressed that their children had of course missed their friends and other aspects of being in school, they had been very proud of their child teaching themselves how to navigate this new platform and making sure they were on time to every live lesson.
3) Individualised question time and boosted confidence
As part of one of our daily live lessons, we would tell the students that we would still be in the live meeting for 30 minutes after the lesson, so that if a child got stuck when they had left the meeting to start the exercise, they could come back and ask us. I found that this time was extremely beneficial as I was able to tailor my explanation specifically for the child that came back. While we can do this in a physical classroom setting, there are other distractions that may take us away from being able to sit down and take the time a child really needs to understand a new concept. Also, now that we are back in the classroom, I have seen a boost of academic confidence in a few of the students who did come back for this individualised question time.
4) Colleague support
As someone who is relatively new to teaching, I mostly find myself on the receiving end of support from colleagues; whether it be in how to best engage students in a particular lesson or how to manage different behaviours. However, in moving our teaching online, I have found that I have been able to support various colleagues through setting up and using our online learning space. Not only this, but the fact that this was new to each and every one of us has meant that I have found there to be a new sense of teamwork and collaboration.
Overall, while I am happy that we are back in the classroom, I do think there have been some positive moments to online teaching that I will look back at and try to remember.
