What Online Learning Has Taught Me as A Teacher

Teaching has always been my passion.

Can’t really put my finger on it, but maybe it’s because I have the natural talent for it. My whole life I love studying new things. That said, my learning experience was not always smooth. A couple failure along the way has taught me a lot.

It is not until 2020, I have decided to join this new online bootcamp called RevoU in Indonesia. They were only 1 year old as a startup that time, focusing on digital marketing as their main curriculum – but I decided to enrol. All I could say is – it was the best learning experience I ever had. Period.

When I graduated from my batch in September (Batch 3). I told myself that I want to be an instructor for RevoU, as a form of giving back from the knowledge that they have given me, but with little to none experience of digital marketing (this is their main focus), I was doubtful that I can ever achieve that goal.

Yet, miracle happened in June, I got approached by RevoU to become their instructor for Content Marketing – my favorite subject (since I love writing). A couple of teaching simulations later, I got the job.

The reason I’m writing this today is that I want to share how the overall learning experience was for me and the students. Furthermore, I wish that this writing can inspire many future students that want to enrol to this awesome school.

The Journey

I have broken down the class experience into several aspects: The students’ overall satisfaction, their eagerness to submit the feedback form, the submission of advanced assignments (the hardest one) from the last 5 weeks, and their attendance.

All of these data is gained with the help of the RevoU team.

Students were very satisfied

The satisfaction score from the whole experience is as follows:

• Monday: 4.83 out of 5 (47 students submitted the feedback form)
• Tuesday: 4.90 out of 5 (43 students submitted the feedback form)
• Wednesday: 4.90 out of 5 (39 students submitted the feedback form)
• Thursday: 4.85 out of 5 (41 students submitted the feedback form)

Based on the data, the students were quite satisfied with the teaching method, showing that RevoU have prepared a high-quality teaching materials. Additionally, the students are also eager to give their feedback. The total students in the class is 57 students, and 90% of them consistently giving feedback to make the overall class experience a lot better

The Trends of Advanced Assignments Submission

This week (Week 11), showed a staggering increase in the number of students whom submitted their advanced assignment. The following is the trend from the last couple of weeks:

• Week 3: 28 submissions
• Week 5: 17 submissions
• Week 7: 19 submissions
• Week 9: 11 submissions
• Week 11: 27 submissions

This shows that the majority of the students have implemented a good time management during the week, since they also have two mandatory assignments to be completed prior to the advanced assignment.

Furthermore, this shows that they really love the subject and able to implement the knowledge to a such degree of practicality

Students were eager to come to class

Based on the attendance data, this is the breakdown of the students’ attendance trend:

• Monday: 56 students
• Tuesday: 56 students
• Wednesday: 57 students
• Thursday: 56 students

This shows that the students enthusiasm before the class were high and the class has fulfilled their expectations. Furthermore, the average attendance rate was 98% for 4 consecutive days which makes the word impressive such an understatement

What do you need to prepare?

On the last bit of this blog, I would like to share my tips and tricks on how you as a teacher can prepare yourself before teaching an online class

1. Build trust with your students

The easiest way to do this is by addressing them one on one through the chat. Build your modesty around them to create a more friendly atmosphere. The biggest pain points that I had a student back then was a barrier that I had with the teachers. They were such an experienced experts in their respective field – doubting my own self-esteem.

Your students can feel the same thing, so what you can do to increase their trust is by talking to them and guiding them whenever they find a problem

2. Master your teaching materials

Talking about the more obvious – but often overlooked aspect of teaching. When I said teaching materials, it’s not just what’s written on your powerpoint or google slides. It’s how you deliver the materials.

I’m talking about a more technical aspects of teaching, like how fast you’re talking, your articulation, your tone, and even your gesture when you teach. You need to create the most comfortable environment for you to teach.

3. Show, don’t tell

When you positioned yourself as a student, you have to understand that some of them are seeing this materials for the first time, some of them have limited access to facilities that other people have in certain locations. What you can do to help them more understand is by explaining a real world example of your teaching materials.

Students love real-world practical problems and solutions. That’s what their look for these days, don’t spend too much time in explaining the theory based on a book or based on an article. Show, don’t tell.

4. Encourage students to participate

The last thing that you want as a teacher is everyone falling asleep during your lecture. It is clearly a challenge in offline classes, but it becomes harder in online classes. With everyone turning off their cameras, you can’t make sure whether they are really paying attention or not.

To overcome this challenge, you can encourage the students to participate in the class. Rather than telling your opinion on certain matters, ask them instead.

Before class, prepare a list of 10 – 2o students consists of most active and inactive students – or better yet, those who are struggling in following the materials (this can be seen based on their feedback form). During class, you can ask them their opinion on a certain matter. Making sure that everyone is on their edge of their seat, paying attention to your class (voluntarily of course)

Summary

It is important for us as teachers to create a great environment for our students to grow. Why? Cause they might replace our position in the future, and create better teachers than we ever could. Plain and simple.

Disclaimer: The data shown in the infographic has been approved by the related stakeholder.