How do we ensure the best distance education?

You can also teach remotely, which requires creativity and other resources.

Below you will find 10 tips!

Make contact with your students. This means that the group should not be too large. For example, make sure you can divide into subgroups. Teams have this capability. As a teacher, you can ‘visit’ the subgroups that are at work. You can start up with anyone, but also work in small groups so that there is real contact. Also, think of 1 on 1 contact or groups with a maximum of 2 students. Change the composition of the groups every now and then.

Provide a clear day program/structure. Then the students and the parents know where they stand that day. Provide a varied day with instruction (videos), working time, conversations, and groups and individually.

Instruction must be short and to the point. See this as an opportunity. Often we are too woolly and instructing for too long. A video can last a maximum of 4 minutes, otherwise, your students will drop out. So make sure you have short and tight instructional videos.

A useful program is, for example, Loom.com (free). You can redo the videos until they are perfect and then send the link to the students via teams, mail, Magister, etc. The videos are online.

During a digital lesson, you do less than during a regular lesson. The technology sometimes lets us down, you are not completely used to it, etc. It is okay, but we think it is important to realize this. The start of the lesson must be more intensive if you work online, otherwise, you will ‘lose’ your students before you even started.

Make sure there is a place where there is work, worksheets. Google classroom works well. It is also possible via Teams. Have work ready and let students upload the created work.

Discuss the learning objective. When it is clear to the students what they are going to learn, it increases the focus. So clearly discuss the purpose of the lesson (what will the students learn this lesson) and explore this together.

Make sure all students have their cameras on so you can see the face. You want to see, just like in class, how the students are doing and whether they are actively working.

Also, work online with cooperative methods to process information. For example, have students work in pairs. Have conversations with 2 or 3 students at the same time and work with Tweepraat or a Conversation on time. Cooperative learning also offers opportunities to process things, for example in pairs. Via the chat function you can do a table round with pairs; let them take turns writing a word or phrase or let students work together on a list. Another option is to have students create a joint document per group/pair in Google docs or OneDrive.

Play games in between to learn. This way you alternate the program and keep the students engaged and engaged. Consider, for example, 30 seconds or a forbidden word. Also who or what am I can be used in all subjects (I am a laser beam asks the student to explain the characteristics of a laser beam and Alexander the Great appeals to a student’s historical knowledge). Through chat, classmates can ask their answers or questions.

Use all apps that you normally use in your lessons. Such as Kahoot, Powerpoint, etc. A nice app is Padlet, here you can, for example, have a timeline made by students. View examples at the bottom of this site.