Is teaching, and the role of teachers, still relevant in this information era? Yes.
Has the concept of teaching transformed completely? Yes, and no.
Students, these days, are just a click away from getting access to an overwhelming amount of resources regarding anything they wish to know about or learn. The resources are available in various formats – videos, blogs, slides, and even in the form of highly interactive quizzes. So, a natural question that would arise in everyone’s mind is if teaching is still relevant in this information era. According to experts, despite the resources that are available for the students these days, teaching is still an integral part of student development.
But having said this, if you ask ‘what makes for a good teacher’ or ‘what are the most important qualities to be a great teacher’, the answer now is completely different now. Especially if you consider how teaching was perceived a decade ago. And considering how education is expected to change and reshape forever in the post-COVID-19 world, it is important for teachers to learn new skills and unlearn a few in order to be effective and remain relevant.
In this blog, let’s see three important qualities that make for a good teacher.
(Read our blog on how the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the education sector forever)
Mastering online teaching
In one of our previous blogs, we had mentioned about how the global online learning market is projected to be worth $325 billion by 2025. Considering this fact, teachers cannot afford to not be tech-savvy. They should master every software that is integral to online education – including the learning management system (LMS) and student information system (SIS). In a way, with online teaching, educators should not be just subject matter experts. They would be required to be more like facilitators. Teaching in virtual classrooms could, sometimes, get exhaustive for teachers, but this is where they can fully make use of tools like LMS.
With the help of LMS, teachers could make classrooms a really immersive and interactive experience for students. Not only this, they can even turn virtual classrooms to very effective brainstorming sessions for students and make them participate in live discussions Even the assessment tasks could be made more interesting – in the form of challenging but interesting online quizzes, assignments, and more.
(Read our blog on how innovative companies/ institutions use Learning Management System)
Know when to rely on technology and when to revert to traditional teaching
As we had discussed earlier, online teaching has become an integral part of education – be it in schools, universities, or even private academies for that matter. But, at the same time, one cannot deny that there are some aspects of traditional classrooms that can still not be replicated in virtual classrooms. To add to that, we are now hearing from educators from across the world about how teaching only online is making both teachers and students feel exhausted. This is where the traditional classrooms prove how important and relevant, they still are.
To put things both the mediums – traditional and virtual teaching – can both become monotonous at one point. But the fact is, the exhaustion levels are far higher when it comes to virtual learning and even teaching. Even when it comes to keeping the students hooked with the class, traditional classrooms are considered to be way better and effective. It’s also undeniable that conventional classrooms now show obvious shortcomings.
This is where blended learning comes into the picture. It is something that adopts the best of traditional and modern (digital) methods of teaching. Hence, educators should mold themselves and become experts in offering blended learning for students.
Leverage data and improve the productivity of students
At a time when data is being excessively used in every field to better the productivity levels, it can easily be used to improve the academic and overall performance of students as well. And this is where the knowledge about software like SIS and LMS comes in handy. First, to get basic information regarding every student, teachers can use SIS. And as the next step, they can use LMS, where they can easily track the performance of students individually and also in terms of groups/ classes.
A good LMS would provide comprehensive information about the students, about where they stand academically and could also provide useful information to teachers to address certain shortcomings. To make it even better, some LMS platforms could provide behavior analytics of students. This could help teachers provide personalized coaching for students more effectively.
(Watch these video to know about how you can master and implement LMS easily and visit this page to know Classe365’s comprehensive SIS features)