The challenge for all - working remotely
Quarantine has forced many educational institutions to make changes: working remotely is necessary to keep the teaching process going. We would like to share an advice of Dr. Rasa Pocevičienė, the Head of Management and Communication Department at Šiauliai State College which will be useful to all participants of the study process.
Recommendations for working remotely:
– the scope and intensity of the work should follow earlier schedule;
– use more GOOGLE services and publicly available tools for meetings, chats, and other work with students;
– students should be informed when their emails will be answered, tasks commented, during which hours they are consulted via telephone, or by other means of communication.
– tasks, including practices, need to be considered more flexibly and creatively. You can always find alternatives or swap tasks, etc.
– there is no need to delete the contents of emails, it is necessary to archive the tasks being sent, students' responses and all information sent to or received from students. This facilitates interaction with students, avoids creating circumstances that can be manipulated;
– when sending material to students, consider the approximate amount of information they can learn on their own within 1.5 hours (i.e., one lecture).
R. Pocevičienė stresses that a student who is studying independently will need several times more time than when working in a classroom with a teacher, so it may be necessary to reduce the number of slides sent for a class. Only essential information should be left in the slides. The teacher can use the slides she/he already has, but should highlight, underline, outline, or color key information more clearly, etc. It is recommended that material of the same subject should be sent in parts (corresponding to the scope of one lecture tasks) with clear and precise questions and tasks. It is necessary to specify not only what needs to be done, but also how everything needs to be done, what scope of work is expected, etc. Particularly important, underlines R. Pocevičienė, is to set when one or another task must be completed.
R. Pocevičienė draws attention to the fact that it would not be advisable to suggest reading only the material sent to students since the aim is not to read, but to select something, fill out a table, answer questions, etc., in other words, to do something that will allow the teacher to understand that students understand the essence, so that another part of the information can be provided.
There should always be a way for teachers and students to work well and achieve learning outcomes.
According to R. Pocevičienė, there is no need to be afraid to ask and share your experiences. After all, in these weeks, higher education institutions have become communities of continuous learning.