Many of us are discovering that working at home for a long stretch can be difficult. Staying productive and motivated is a challenge, and it is not always easy to find a routine to keep things running smoothly. How much harder is it, then, if you’re a lecturer or instructor teaching a class of students spread across the country? Or even farther afield? And what if you’re a student forced to study on your own?

We asked our online Higher Education panel, which includes over 400 instructors globally, to share their experiences and asked them what they were doing to stay in touch with their students to keep them engaged. In this blog, we’ll share some of their tips and ideas for teaching remotely.

For some, the solution to teaching remotely was moderately straightforward, and achieved by extending distance learning programmes. One lecturer told us, “We have a strong Distance Learning programme so for us it is a transition to DL for all.”

But what can you do if your institution has little or no experience in supporting distance learning?

A key point from the feedback was the need to establish good student interaction. One-way communication from the lecturer to the student is neither satisfying for the teacher nor particularly inspiring for the student. Email is fine as a means to share resources and answer specific questions, but it’s not an ideal way to carry on a complex discussion involving, say, fifty students with a range of abilities. It needs backup. One possibility is the online platform Remind, which one instructor mentioned as an easy way to keep in touch, assign individual tasks and homework, and give online feedback.

Several other instructors also kept it fairly simple, and told us that they use WhatsApp to answer questions and contact students directly. Whether this works for larger groups is unclear, but it could be useful for tutorials, for example, by setting up small groups where you can chat, share videos, files and voice messages.

A number of lecturers have tried to embrace the full online teaching experience, and told us about running virtual classrooms. In one case, this was done by sending course materials via Google Classroom, and uploading the classroom materials on Moodle, which is a free (open source) interactive teaching and learning management system. Another instructor told us they use Zoom, a video conferencing application which they said works well for one-on-one meetings or small group discussions. It is also possible to set up something called a Zoom Classroom, where, according to the instructor who mentioned it, “you can teach students online … see them, talk to them and carry on your class.”

What’s more, a ‘classroom’ approach lets you use your class materials as intended – for teaching – rather than as makeshift tools for self-study. This might not be an issue for everyone, but was a concern for one lecturer. On the other hand, simply uploading material on the institution website so that students can access it easily may be a good solution for you. Sometimes simplest is best.

As mentioned above, several instructors pointed out the importance of good two-way communication with students. For distance learning, this is clearly more of a challenge. Without effective interaction, it can be hard to know whether students are engaging with, or understanding, the material. One instructor was worried that the shift to online and remote learning could mean that some students fall behind. To try to prevent this, they introduced ‘new accountability procedures’ and regular catch-ups designed to increase engagement and to make it easier to spot warning signs from students that are struggling.

There are probably as many ways to approach remote teaching as there are teachers. So, it’s not a surprise that there is no one-size-fits-all solution. What comes across from all the comments is a strong desire to maintain (or even improve) teaching standards, and to ensure that today’s students finish their courses ready for the future. We hope that some of the ideas we’ve shared here help to inspire you to try something new. Or, perhaps, to take a moment to think about how you can refine your own approach. Most importantly, as many of the panel told us, it’s essential to keep students engaged and keep teaching!

Are you a lecturer or instructor? Would you like to be part of our Higher Education panel and share insight with colleagues around the world?

Apply today here