Distance Teaching Tips

I've been thinking a lot about what I have to offer my fellow educators in this season where so many of us are teaching at a distance. I like teaching online, and I feel like I've been equipped for this work--one of my areas of focus in my graduate work was online teaching and learning, after all. But the downside is, I know the things I know, and I know some of the things I don't know, but there are also the "unknown unknowns"--things I don't even know that I don't know. And...I'd hate to be seen as overestimating my own capability (because the Dunning-Kruger Effect certainly is a real thing!) So I'm a little apprehensive about sharing "here's how to teach online" sorts of posts.

But I've also had great feedback on posts I've shared in the past, such as this one offering tips on How to Manage Teaching Online. So, in that light, I'm going to try to share a distance teaching tip every day for the month of September. These will probably be relatively short posts, with just a quick blurb of explanation and an example or two from my own online teaching practice. My hope is that these will be encouraging for fellow educators who are teaching at a distance.

A couple of caveats before I begin:

• I'll call these "promising practices" for online teaching, rather than "best practices." Some of these tips have a strong base in research over the long term. Others are tips that I've adapted into online teaching from other learning environments. 
• Most of my online teaching experience has been at the graduate or undergraduate level. It's not that these things can't also translate into a K-12 teaching environment, but let's recognize that teaching adults or young adults might be different than teaching high school, middle school, or elementary students online. 
• I believe teaching is best viewed as a craft, not an "art" or a "science." It's the sort of thing where the more you practice, the better you get. If you try one of these tips as a one-off, it might work great, or it might flop. Chances are, like most everything in teaching, the more you practice it, the more success you'll find.
• These tips are based on my experiences teaching online. Your results may vary, so take these tips as what they are: stories of things I've been doing in my own teaching practice that have worked out relatively well for me. Use at your own risk, okay?

What kinds of things will I be sharing? Well, here's a sampling of the list I came up with just now for some topics I'll likely share about:

• Tips for engaging students
• Tips for motivation
• Tips for communication
• Tips for building community
• Tips for presenting content
• Tips for assessing learning
• Tips for managing the work of teaching online

In full disclosure, part of this writing project is that I hope to get back into the habit of writing something every day, and this seems like something that is both doable for me, and will potentially provide some benefit to anyone who might be reading along as well.

And...if you have questions, or things you'd like me to weigh in on, please drop me a line by either commenting in response, or tweeting to me at @d_mulder. I hope you'll read along!

Photo by Sergey Zolkin on Unsplash