8 Tips for Improving Remote Learning in Higher Education
As many countries globally are seeking to find a path out of the impact of the pandemic, others are seeing spikes in cases, despite vaccination efforts. This poses the much-asked question: will things ever return to the same state as they were pre-COVID?
Similarly, education faces the same questions. As students return to their learning settings for face-to-face time, the question of how in-person learning will last lingers. Additionally, as it has been well noted, there were a suite of positives in switching to a remote learning model. We’ve heard anecdotally of nervous students coming out of their shells and we’ve also seen successes where attainment has remained constant—a testament to the hard work of both teachers and their students.
As remote learning is now an integral part of the education space, we wanted to take a look at some hints and tips for improving the experience for learners utilising a distance-based, digital model. These have been put together with McGraw Hill customers.
1. Build a Connection with Students
Rather than immediately jumping into the lecture, one suggestion is to use the first few classes, or minutes of each session, to establish rapport with your students. This personal touch can make all the difference.
2. Utilise surveys
At the end of your course, you could consider sending out surveys with the goal of hearing what went well and what didn’t to identify opportunities to improve remote learning. You can then share the results with the students, along with your input. This can be your most unfiltered source of information for improving remote learning and shows how much you value the opinion of your learners.
3. Create a Timetable Suited for Online Learning
We hear that a remote learning model can afford greater flexibility with timetables, and a wider timeline to teach and your students the flexibility to learn.
In terms of process, McGraw Hill customers suggest that you spend some time analysing last term/semester’s course completion, student attendance and student performance. Find out the loopholes where there is scope for improvement. Ask students how they feel they can better leverage your lectures, and then design a timetable that works best for both parties.
4. Help Students Maintain Focus
Concentrating in an online class can be tough. Unlike a physical classroom setting, students stay in their usual surrounding when studying from home which is documented as having an impact on ability to focus.
Lacking the structure of a traditional school day or lecture, students can find it difficult to concentrate, organize their time, and stay on track. Thus, it becomes important to provide them with the structure that can help them focus.
Here’s how: Break your curriculum into trackable tasks that serve as weekly milestones. Give clear directions that serve as prompt reminders of activities, assignments, assessments, and due dates. Organize your sessions around shorter sequences and activities (polls, breakout sessions, questions). Pause during a class and ask if students have any questions or pose a question yourself.
5. Create a Sense of Community
The online world is a great platform to bring together individuals from diverse interests and experience and create communities that enrich all involved. Our customers suggest that you can build a sense of community with your learners online and share that splitting groups into smaller ones using online meeting platforms can really help. The small groups can be set to participate in icebreaker activities to help them get to know each other. Skew team assignments more towards the start of your course, so students feel at home talking to each other as they carry on with the session.
6. Identify and Support Struggling Students
In this rapid shift to virtual learning, technology has come to fore, but it is a fallacy to assume all students are on the same page. Every student has their own learning curve - some need academic support, others, technology assistance. Yet a lot more need non-academic support.
What can you do? Monitor their engagement and undertake regular check-ins and check-ups. You can reach out proactively whenever you see there are signs that a student is falling behind.
7. Keep Exploring Opportunities to Make your Content Interactive
The online learning tools have taken content interactivity to a new dimension. Quizzes that have immediate results, personalized reviews that let students see real-time the areas they need to focus. Apart from what the tools offer, there are always opportunities to be innovative and create more interactive content. Instructors have really gone the extra mile – some have optimized their schedules to best suit the online model, while others are gamifying their content to make it more interactive.
8. Balance Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning
Online learning can be done either synchronously, where every student is online at the same time, or asynchronously, where students access the same lesson at different times. Synchronous lessons can be harder and do not allow as much time for practice, but it not only allows for prompt teacher feedback, but it also enables teachers and students to maintain connections and feel part of a group—which is still just as important as ever.
Learning is a constant process. We hope these hints and tips will offer some guidance and food for thought for the future.