Excellent online education can become a key motivational force for increased learning developmental methods, expanding knowledge, and developing skills. Teaching duties are supposed to be carried out in a face-to-face school environment and not consciously and deliberately online. Yet, changes are constant, and teachers must adapt to such changes to grow and survive.
An online tutor and a teacher play the same significant role in planning, implementing, assessing, and correlating learning experiences for learners.
Thus, it would be safe to assume that they both experience the same challenges when it comes to teaching. However, online tutors often experience more challenges than typical schoolteachers. Inevitably, many problems and challenges arise in online learning. Access to electricity, internet service, equipment, suitable computers, and electronic devices are noticeable major problems.
Far more challenging could be instructional problems. Learners of diverse ages, backgrounds, academic levels, beliefs, and traditions in a digital learning community can be a spoonful challenge, even for the most knowledgeable instructor.
With that, as an online tutor, you must have clear insights and professionally developed attributes to address online educational problems and challenges.
Towards that end, below are common challenges in online tutorials and suggestions on how to deal with such hurdles.
Lack of Motivation Among Learners
Even though learners commit repeated logins they could be uncommitted. Although they maybe face-to-face during these online classes, they are still behind screen monitors, lacking the advantages of teaching presently and physically. Online learners have more tendency to lose motivation. Study guidelines are often not understood, especially if they’re complicated and don’t invite the learner’s interest.
To deal with such challenges, provide lessons that are relevant, interesting, and straightforward. Do so without losing the goal of addressing the learner’s needs.
Discipline Is Hard to Implement
In a face-to-face scenario, there are a lot of ways instructors use to discipline their students. Some may use detention or extra homework as a form of discipline. As for online teachers, it’s extra challenging to control unruly students, because they can easily ignore you and not be bothered at all.
You can avoid such instances by planning an interesting online lesson that follows a learning timetable. With an interesting lesson, the learner’s focus and attention are retained. And, with a timetable, all learning sessions are set, and learners have no time to mess around because they follow a schedule. Building rapport with your students is also an effective way to implement discipline. By establishing a good teacher-student relationship, you won’t have to discipline them as much.
Communication and Socialization Are Compromised
It’s one of the many advantages of learning in school that students can joke and play around with kids their age or socialize with other students, resulting in enjoyable learning.
However, in online classes, preparation and purposely planning of communication and socialization are often overlooked. It is indeed challenging for many instructors to acknowledge and understand the concept that communication and socialization should be specifically tailored in online classes.
Bridge these communication and socialization gaps by incorporating in your lesson learning activities that focus on enhancing communication and socialization. For instance, during your English session, allow the learners to write a letter to their Facebook friends, reminding them to be safe in this time of the pandemic. Or give them homework like learning fractions by having a weekend bake-off with their families.
The Perennial Attendance Issue
Learners that only log in once or less within a week are red flags. These translate to many unopened messages, missed sessions, and, more importantly, lesser learnings. Those learners may struggle to grasp on the discussions going on and may end up losing interest in learning.
As much as you can, encourage learners to participate genuinely and start making significant contributions. Provide motivations all the time and boost learners’ interest by giving positive feedback and reinforcement.
Learners Misconception of Online Learning
Students typically demand to be educated, and they define themselves more as an audience than as performers. The urge to be instructed and receiving lessons could create problems for instructors who require students to account for their learning actively.
Several students grew up in a competitive teaching system, where learners will have to outdo others to ensure the best grades. This differs from the popular learning strategy in online learning requiring active involvement and interaction in online classrooms. Activities are and should be characterized as actively engaging.
Long and Bulky Discussion Messages
Having to read long messages on one’s screen is tiring. More often, these long and complex writings result from copying and pasting from unknown references. Consequently, learners avoid reading such long writings and lose significant ideas. More students find it easier to understand postcard-size messages, brief and to-the-point.
Get over such circumstances by convincing students that “simple is best” in an online learning environment (and with any learning platforms). Brief messages communicate effectively on point and have a more significant influence.
Technical Adjustments
Online learning is entirely new for some students. They may need some time to understand better online classroom platforms, applications, and rigid learning structures. Some students spend much time looking for the best learning spot to avoid getting lost because of a poor internet connection.
Be considerate and try to balance the need to be educated and the limiting circumstances. Use appropriate systems and programs for individual learners that enable them to explore productively in the online world.
Technical Skills
On top of the emphasis on student’s capabilities and readiness in learning online, the technical skills of online teachers are another factor that needs to be addressed.
Despite several efforts on the side of the government in providing training and capacity building seminars, still, some teachers aren’t well versed in using the different applications and platforms for online learning.
On a brighter note, teachers should be motivated by the cliche that goes, “You can’t give what you don’t have.” Teaching can be made effective if teachers adapt and learn to be more technically savvy. In doing so, they’ll live up to the challenges of shifting classes online. Consequently, this will lead to an effective and successful teaching and learning process.
Assessment
How do tutors make assessments in online learning? Conventional examinations are systematic. A summative test tends to evaluate how good students are and how well they’ve learned. Preferably, trainings and expertise assessments should be rated through performance-based instead of an assessment test with multiple choice answers.
However, aside from quizzes and examinations, there are numerous ways to rate learning and performances. For instance, you can hand out digital badges for your students, a more intimate and personalized form of evaluation. Badges signify skill sets or achievements gained in various types of educational activities, say, Best in Math, or Best in Science. Make sure these badges look fun and appealing so your students will really thrive to get them.
Online tutors know by heart the significance of education to every learner. How you impose your assessments could work best to make a positive learning environment feasible.
Final Thoughts
Challenges make the journey worth taking. It adds excitement to the undertaking making it more meaningful in the end. Though tutors may face challenges in online teaching, they can overcome such hurdles with dedication and determination.
Chalkboard, the country’s first end-to-end learning platform that connects tutors to learners, shares the same vision. We look forward to a less-challenged learning process available and accessible for every Filipino learner. No Filipino learner should be left behind. Join us and be one of us for this cause.
Contact us at Chalkboard if you’re willing to impart your knowledge and expertise as an online tutor to eager Filipino learners.
