1. Chunking information

In online learning, students’ attention is more likely to wane than in traditional face-to-face learning environments. Research has shown that the online lectures length and the cognitive load can make students distracted.

Besides, the students may view them under conditions conducive to mind wandering and distraction, such as at home with friends, television, Facebook, e-mail, etc. So, if you’re teaching online, you need to care about student attention more than any time before.

To design instruction to engage student attention, you need to divide your lesson content into chunks, in which you group and organize information into categories or small pieces. Focus the learning experience on one chunk or idea at a time and go slowly helping your students learn it. Remember that it’s not necessary to cover everything in one lesson.

Chunking information has been advocated by cognitive researchers not only to grab students’ attention but also to increase their retention (See George Miller’s milestone article from 1956: The Magical Number Seven.)

However, before applying chunking you need to know your students’ prior knowledge so that you don’t repeat or focus on what they already know and so make them bored and distracted.

To create an efficient learning experience you are expected to build each new chunk on pre-existing knowledge. This is one of the effective online teaching practices.

2. Flexibility

Technology isn’t always perfect and reliable, and online teachers have to be prepared to cope with the different issues they may face. These are not just technical, but there are also those related to students’ absences, lack of interest in attending online classes, completing assignments, staying focused, etc.

This means while designing courses you need to consider not only the course objectives but also how to adapt strategies and technologies for achieving the objectives. So, being flexible is a highly effective online teaching practice.

Empirical evidence showed that presenting materials online in various formats – using videos, audio, other technologies, or software – that can allow students to respond in multiple formats was most appreciated by students (Rao and Tanners,2011).

Besides, since our brain responds better to visual information than text-based content it’s necessary to create more appealing visuals such as infographics, storytelling pictures, and graphs to go with your online content. This helps improve your students’ focus and retention.

Flexibility also entails caring about students’ feelings. Therefore, sustain your students’ interest with discussion, use humour, and help them decompress when they feel tired or stressed.

3. Instructional pacing

Another highly effective online teaching practice is pacing. Pacing refers to the rate at which new instructional material or content is introduced to students. Schmidt‐Weigand et al. (2010) found that the pace of instruction positively correlated with visual information processing of online students.

In this concern, brain research supports the idea that clear goals are essential for learning because they help to keep students focused and avoid a clunky lesson pace.

So, start your online lessons by explaining to your students what they’re expected to learn and why. Besides, along with the lesson let them know how closer they are to achieving its goal.

Use incentives like praising students’ effort: ‘Great! you’ve succeeded to do/understand…….”. “You still have to…”. Illustrate with pictures or graphs the tools, and strategies they need to implement to get this goal.

Effective pacing also involves smooth transitions. To do so, cue students on important points: “Listen carefully! Now, we’ll deal with something important”, “Please, pay more attention to…”.

Use digital flashcards, music, short video clips, and create your alerts (particular sounds, signals, etc) to bring your students to the next tasks.

Also, be sure to have all your materials ready. In online teaching, this might be much easier since they’re kept in one place: your computer or device. Try to organize your folders, name them, select and prepare ahead those you need in your online lesson. This helps you keep the flow going.

4. Active learning

For a better online experience, provide a more active online learning experience in which the student has some control of what and how he or she learns.

In such a case, the technology is not merely used to deliver the content, but also to allow students to control digital artifacts, explore information or address problems, and learn through interactions with other students and the technology used.

Indeed, many studies provide some evidence that suggests an advantage for giving learners an element of control over the online resources with which they engage (Cavus et al. 2007; Dinov). Therefore, to get your students engaged and maximize learning gains focus on these two tips:

1) Help your students engage in productive cognitive processing during learning. That is selecting relevant information, mentally organizing incoming information into a coherent cognitive structure, and integrating the cognitive structures with relevant prior knowledge activated from long-term memory (Fiorella and Mayer,2015).

To do so, integrate generative activities into your online teaching such as asking students to:

• collaborate to solve a particular problem, to think of arguments and counterarguments for elaborated questions (receiving prompts);
• take summary notes of content, or summarize the learning from the lesson using keywords;
• create a graphic organizer showing how what they learned today connects with what they already know about the lesson’s concept;
• create a concept map or sketchnotes to connect the ideas about the lesson;
• highlight keywords and phrases from this lesson using symbols and pictures;
• prepare their own quizzes for revisions lessons.

2) Encourage their interaction online. Try to call upon different interaction patterns :
• Instructor-student interactions: talk to your students, address questions about your content, their interests and goals, check out their understanding, and provide feedback, praise, and rewards.

This type of interaction is the key to successful online teaching. Researchers found that the more often those connections occur, the more engaged the students are in their courses.

• Student-instructor interactions: encourage them to pose questions, comment, and provide their feedback regarding the lesson. Listen to their concern. Give them your email to communicate their needs, and devote some extra meeting online for those who need your help.

• student-student interactions: encourage teamwork within and outside your online classes. Help students feel that they’re supported by their peers. Research has shown that online students expect active facilitation from the instructor to promote students’ social interaction and sense of belonging which determine their engagement online (Harris, Larrier, and Castano-Bishop,2011).

• Student-interface interactions: support your students to interact with the technology used for online education: your Zoom meeting, Google Slides, videos, etc. Yet, make sure to clarify their purpose and relevance to their learning.

Research suggests that how a medium is used is more important than merely having access to it. Indeed, it was found that students in the interactive video group performed significantly better than those in the noninteractive video and nonvideo (Zhang et al.,2006).

• Student-self interaction: encourage students to reflect on your content, to choose, and make decisions. Engaging students in such a reflective process was found to be effective in improving outcomes. Indeed, research evidence supports the use of:

-a formative online self-assessment strategy such as addressing self-assessment questions at the end of courses (Cook et al.,2005);
-question prompts asking students to reflect on their problem-solving activities (Bixler, 2008);
-a self-monitoring form for students to record their study time and environment, note their learning process, predict their test scores, and create a self-evaluation (Chang,2007);
-self-regulated learning instruction such as managing study time, goal-setting, and self-evaluation (Shen, Lee & Tsai,2007).

These are 4 Highly Effective Online Teaching Practices. Enhancing students’ learning online requires much time and effort from us. Be encouraged. You can do this.

References

Bixler, B. A. (2008). The effects of scaffolding student’s problem-solving process via question prompts on problem solving and intrinsic motivation in an online learning environment. PhD diss., The Pennsylvania State University, State College, Penn.
Cavus, N., H. Uzonboylu, and D. Ibrahim. (2007). Assessing the success rate of students using a learning management system together with a collaborative tool in Web-based teaching of programming languages. Journal of Educational Computing Research 36 (3):301–21.
Chang, M. M. (2007). Enhancing Web-based language learning through self-monitoring. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning 23 (3):187–96.
Cook, D. A., D. M. Dupras, W. G. Thompson, and V. S. Pankratz. (2005). Web-based learning in residents’ continuity clinics: A randomized, controlled trial. Academic Medicine 80 (1):90–97.
Fiorella, L., & E. Mayer.R.(2015). Learning as a Generative Activity: Eight Learning Strategies that Promote Understanding. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Harris, S. M., Larrier, Y. I., & Castano-Bishop, M. (2011). Development of the Student Expectations of Online Learning Survey (SEOLS): A pilot study. Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 14(4), 1–11.
Rao, K., & Tanners, A. (2011). Curb cuts in cyberspace: Universal instructional design for online courses. Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, 24(3), 211-229.
Schmidt‐Weigand, F., Kohnert, A., & Glowalla, U. (2010). Explaining the modality and contiguity effects: New insights from investigating students’ viewing behaviour. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 24(2), 226-237.
Shen, P. D., T. H. Lee, and C. W. Tsai. (2007). Applying Web-enabled problem-based learning and self-regulated learning to enhance computing skills of Taiwan’s vocational students: A quasi-experimental study of a short-term module. Electronic Journal of e-Learning 5 (2):147–56.

Zhang, D., L. Zhou, R. O. Briggs, and J. F. Nunamaker, Jr. (2006). Instructional video in e-learning: Assessing the impact of interactive video on learning effectiveness. Information and Management 43 (1):15–27.