A paradigm shift of education to the online mode has yielded excellent results to date. Since the teachers have become accustomed to this super-efficient teaching mode, online education has become a favorite mode of imparting and receiving knowledge among the students and teachers.
Often, teachers face difficulty teaching science subjects to the students as these are not based on theoretical learning alone. Teachers can share physics, chemistry, or biology notes to make the concepts clearer. Still, the demonstration of experiments is essential to give them a complete picture of the topic they are learning.
Application of the real-world context to the science-based lessons is an important part of the role of the teachers. If you are a science teacher and find it hard to reach out the core idea to the students via the practical lessons, read along to find out more about the art of handling practical-based subjects in online classes.
Tips To Teach Practical-Based Subjects In The Online Mode
Tip #1: Fixing The Aim While Teaching Science Or Practical Subjects Virtually
The best teaching technique is the one that keeps in mind the interests of the students. Make sure that you know what exactly you are going to teach to the students and why. It would help if you answered your question about whether you wish your students only to grasp the facts or pin to their brains the technical approaches towards learning a subject. Striking a balance between teaching a subject factually and explaining the details by bringing in the technical information or ‘how-to.’
Since demonstrating the experiment to them in real-time won’t be possible, you can spread the word of the practical lessons to the students by sharing online resources or videos that show the experiments in detail. Once they get the apt visuals of the results of the experiments along with the exact information that a particular scientific is imbued with, their learning process will be facilitated.
The social science subject of geography also requires a fair amount of attention from the students to notice how the topographical maps can be used to procure information since most secondary educational institutions have this part in their curriculum.
Tip #2: Imbibing Authentic/Genuine Online Learning
The main reason behind including practical-based assessments in the syllabus is to make the students perform the tasks by themselves to gain a comprehensive understanding of what they are learning. Applying authenticity to the assessment procedures is believed to help the teachers test and see how well the students respond to the activities that were supposed to be conducted in the laboratories.
Tip #3: Using The ‘Screen-Sharing’ Feature To The Maximum Extent Possible
Practical-based subjects will require the demand of theoretical notes and technical know-how of the topic being taught in the class. Apart from science subjects that require practical assessments, there is also the necessity for computer science-based lessons to be conducted in an illustrated way. You can share the screen in an online class to explain the nitty-gritty of programming languages and coding, along with providing them with an explanation to handle some of the basic stuff such as taking sheets and calculations in MS Excel, learning HTML codes, etc.- all of which form a core aspect of the syllabus of the students.
Tip #4: Offering Liberty To Students To Make Use Of Equipment They Own & Can Use For Demonstrations
It won’t be possible for the students to have beakers, bunsen burners, and other practical equipment at their homes. You may ask them to keep some essential gear at home to have a basic understanding of the topic they are learning. However, never pressurize your pupils into garnering that very basic stuff at their homes. Online learning requires that you give proper attention to the students’ capacities rather than thrusting them into buying something and keeping that at home with them. There are several laboratory experiential videos available online, so you can share those with your students to give them a complete idea of how the entire experiment takes place.
Final Words
Hopefully, you can now teach the practical subjects to the students in an ideal way by explaining the core concepts to them easily.