A university completely taught online: Who would have thought?
Instead of sitting in class with your fellow students, you now sit at home, alone, in front of your computer. Online teaching and digital courses present new challenges for teachers and students alike.
How can you make the best use of digital courses?
Be prepared – Have all the materials you need for the course ready. This includes not only lecture notes, notepad and pencil, but also a small snack, refreshments and coffee or tea. Having to hurry somewhere quickly during the lecture to fetch forgotten things is inconvenient and distracting.
Silence please! – Make sure that you will not be disturbed. Your roommate wanting to chat with you, the washing machine beeping in the background and the cat jumping on your keyboard – all this is unnecessary distraction. Set up a workspace, make sure that you will not be disturbed and that everyone around you knows that you need to focus on your work.
Participate – Every course, not just online, lives from participation. Raise your hand and ask questions when things are unclear. Find out how this can be done in your classes. Using the chat function, you can easily ask questions wihtout interrupting the lecturer In the chat this can be done easily without interrupting the lecturer and for oral contributions, you can usually find a virtual hand to raise in the online conference tool you are using.
Giving feedback – Online classes are not just new terrain for you. Giving your teacher constructive feedback and suggestions can be very helpul in order to optimise the quality of the digital courses. Is there potential for improvement? What is already working great? If you like something particularly much, tell the teachers so that they know how their new concepts are perceived.
Live lectures open up the possibility to participate in classes without having to travel. Especially for questions or interactive formats, you can actively participate via chat or microphone – questions can be asked and unscertainties resolved. Direct interaction between teachers and students is thus possible.
In contrast, on-demand lectures offer maximum freedom of time. Whether in the morning, at noon or in the evening: the lecture is only a click away. If dinner is just about ready or you need a short break for fresh air or coffee, click on Pause and continue later. And if you have lost internet connection, you can rewind the video without any difficulties and listen to the lecture again. Also, when dealing with content that you can already know and dont want to repeat, you can simply forward the video and continue with new and interesting topics.
Ideally, your courses offer both formats. If the recording is uploaded after the live event, you can participate interactively in the event as well as access the content during your study phase and thus prepare yourself optimally. A missed event can also be easily made up for – Life gets in the way of planning from time to time.
Written by: Iris Heisterklaus
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