6 Tips for Virtual Teaching – Practical Advice from Instructors

So, you have decided to become an online teacher. You desire to free up your schedule while empowering students to achieve their own personal learning goals. Obviously, you have discovered amazing online tutoring jobs sites such as Preply that provide incredible teaching opportunities and you are on your way to living your dream. Now it is time to improve your skills with advice from professionals that have gone before you. Here are 6 tips to keep in mind from expert online instructors. 

Become More Engaging

An online presence is something most businesses understand these days. You must make yourself visible online for your customers and clients to find. The same notion should be given to online teachers, but in a different way. The most influential teachers are those that engage with their students. We have all had the unfortunate chance to be in a classroom with a monotone teacher with little to no personality in their lessons. 

The best teachers understand the ability to take hold of a lesson and make it memorable. This can be a little difficult with an online classroom, but it is not impossible. Keep your students engaged with  posts on discussion boards and social media sites outside of the classroom. Through these discussions and interaction opportunities, you will build a more quality relationship with your students making them more excited to learn from you. 

Make a Lesson Plan

If you think you are simply going to wing it with your online tutor jobs, you are not going to be very successful. For as long as standardized classrooms have been in existence, teachers have plotted out lesson plans for their students. This notion is not only applicable for the physical classroom, but the virtual one as well. Having a lesson plan helps you remain on task and solely focused on your students. During discussions, it can be easy to go off on a tangent and leave the lesson off in left field. Take the time to manage and stick to a lesson plan for the sake of your teaching ability and your valued students. 

Short, Focused Lessons

The attention span of the average person is not very long. Extended lessons can start out strong, but by the end, you could be facing a lot of deaf ears. According to expert teachers, the key to reaching students in the online learning environment is shortening lessons. Focused, shorter lessons have the ability to stick in the mind of your students better than extended lessons. When making your lesson plan, ensure it is focused on the actual point of the lesson.

A Need for Tangible Instruction

Putting information out into the virtual atmosphere is great, but what distinguishes a great online teacher from just an average one is the ability to provide actual, tangible instructions to their students. The student does not merely need to be satisfied with the lesson, but able to take away high quality information from it. Ensure your lessons create value in them. You are taking your time and the time of your students, so providing meaningful instruction is essential. 

Encourage Audience Participation

One of the worst things a teacher can do is simply talk. Questions and answer sessions are essential for getting your students involved within the virtual classroom. Interaction is essential for keeping your students interested in the subject matter and ultimately learning. Encourage various students to answer questions and maintain a positive classroom environment. Even if a student answers wrong, work to make the wrong answer another way of teaching. It can be embarrassing to answer incorrectly and a quality online teacher knows how to minimize embarrassment and empower positive praise. 

Find a Comfortable Teaching Platform

In our virtual society, there are so many avenues and software programs to provide a virtual classroom environment. This is great for the improvement of virtual learning, but it can also become an issue if you simply choose the most popular option. Expert teachers take their time finding the right platform for their online classroom. SKYPE, Google Hangouts, and Zoom are just a fraction of the options available to online instructors, so try out each one and find out the one you are most comfortable teaching from. The more comfortable as a teacher you can be, the better instruction you can provide to your valued students. 

If you have a love for teaching and a desire to make an impact in the world, tutoring jobs online is the best way to teach. Online tutor jobs allow you to make an impact without taking over all your time. Work on your schedule and at a pace that is comfortable for you and your students. These tips will help you get more out of the virtual classroom and become a top-quality online instructor.