5 Pointers for Teaching Online or Remotely

By Dr Steven Gennaro (sgennaro@yorku.ca)

You have been asked to teach online. Maybe, you have taught online before? Maybe you have taken an online course? Or maybe this is your first time going digital. In all cases, here are some of the best lessons I’ve learned from 15 years of digital teaching and learning. Some of these I learned from taking courses on how to teach online, but many have also come from my failures or what we often refer to as trial and error! After all, wasn’t it Thomas Edison who said when describing his process towards creating the lightbulb, “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”

If you are nervous about going digital, that is ok. Here are 5 pointers I would pass on to help you with your journey.

1. Teaching online is not the same as teaching in the traditional classroom or lecture hall. It just isn’t.

Problem: There is no perfect way to replicate the human interaction, the personal engagement, the weekly meet ups that for most of us were the primary way that we were educated and the primary way we have practiced our role as educators. Many instructors want to replicate the feelings and experiences of traditional classroom learning when they move online and this leads to frustration and disappointment for the student experience and the teaching experience too!

Pointer: Just know that it can’t be the same and it won’t be perfect. Allow yourself some room for error as you learn what works best for you, your teaching style, your particular subject matter, and your students.

2. The space-time continuum is altered for digital learning. 

This is one of the best lessons I ever learned from taking a course about teaching online:

Problem: Time moves differently for online learning. You can’t just take a 2-hour lecture and move it online. The same is true for an online reading, online office hours, online tutorials, assignments, quizzes and even discussion forums. Online learning hours are like dog years. They happen at a much more rapid pace than the traditional classroom.

Pointer: It is best to cut back your expectations in term of content delivery. This does NOT mean cutting back the learning or the student experience. What I do personally, is write down next to each piece I post on Moodle how much time students should expect it will take them to complete the reading, the assignment, the task, etc. Then when I get to the end of the weekly post I add up at the time requirements and I can see right away if I have too much or too little for the students to realistically accomplish and I can adjust accordingly too.

Here is an example:

3. The space-time continuum is also altered for digital teaching! 

It is a lot of extra work to move a course online and to teach it online.

Problem: Workload is multiplied exponentially when you move online and this is a major cause of anxiety and concern for the instructor since you are no longer just asked to be an expert in your subject for content delivery, but you are also now asked to be a technology expert, to “build your course” and to solve student tech problems. Plus, you are now asked to facilitate an increased number of emails to replace conversations with students; remember that every single student question asked in a lecture hall only takes a minute to answer, but online it now takes several minutes to read the email and compose a detailed response, in addition to the fact that you may have to answer the same question several times in emails to several different students. These are just a few examples of the workload challenges.

Pointer: When you are completing pointer number 2 (see above) for how long each student should spend each week on each task for the course, keep a similar log for yourself. Ask yourself, how long each week will I spend reading, prepping for lecture, posting content, acting as tech support, answering student email, holding online office hours, recording and editing lectures (if you do that), grading, meeting with my TAs (if you have TAs), etc. Map out what each week looks like for you and if it is too much, then you probably need to shed some of that work by setting up some structures for better work balance.

Here are two examples of ways I have tried to deal with workload in the past:

a) Have defined check in hours for the course and for student concerns. I always pick one day a week that is the designated update day and that’s the day every week that I update the site. I have also used a defined online email policy in the past that has been very helpful for e–learning. I post both of these policies in the syllabus and on Moodle.

Here is an example:

For this course, any weekly updates to the course on Moodle will happen on: THURSDAYSEmails: I respond to emails daily between 11:30-12 noon Monday Friday (excluding holidays). Any emails sent after 11:30 am will be responded to the next days. Emails sent after 11:30am on Friday will be answered to Monday 11:30am to 12 noon.

b) Create a discussion forum for student questions. Here, students can post questions about the course (and ideally other students will help to answer these) but you can also let the students know how often you will enter into this forum and clean it out by answering all unresolved queries every week. It is reasonable to ask students to check here and post here first before emailing.

Here is an example:

4. Start where you are at. That is ok. Everyone is at a different spot. 

Problem: There is an anxiety or worry that we somehow must be experts for online teaching immediately even though for most of us we have never taught online before and for many we have never even had a course website before.

Pointer: You don’t have to immediately be at a point where you are live streaming super cool videos of you lecturing while riding a unicycle in virtual reality. You don’t have to invent the wheel just to move your class online. Someone else already did that! So, small steps are ok. But also, there are plenty of great resources out there. At York, we have incredible resources to help, like The Teaching Commons https://teachingcommons.yorku.ca but I also have used this YouTube channel plenty of times for extra access to short and easy to follow instructions for how to use Moodle, Skype, YouTube, Camtasia and more! https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKjOFIFE0q71IJ4GFx4brng

5. Be precise.

Problem: It can be so confusing to be an online student.

Pointer: Try as best you can to keep it simple.

Simple to access.

Simple to read (this means more than just text if possible).

Simple to process.

Simple to complete.

Simple to connect to the instructor and class mates.

Simple to learn.

Remember the anxiety you are having or may have had when told you needed to move all of your teaching online? Now remember, many students will have this same anxiety about having their learning moved completely online AND they still have to be evaluated by you for how well they actually can process the content you have posted.

6. Here is an extra one: Be kind to yourself. 

It’s a big task to move online. So, take your time, seek out the advice and support of others, be realistic about what you can do and what your students can do, and try always to keep it simple.

Hopefully, by following these pointers for teaching online you will have a more peaceful journey into the digital learning environment and as you discover your own 10,000 ways that don’t work for online teaching, you may also stumble on inventing your own lightbulb or phonograph.

About the Author

Dr. Steve Gennaro was an early adopter to e-learning in higher education having helped to design and deliver over 30 courses in the Faculty of Liberal Arts and Professional Studies in traditional, blended, and fully online formats dating back to 2005. He is one of the founding faculty members of York’s Children, Childhood, and Youth Studies Program and his academic work explores intersections of media, technology, psychology, and youth identity.