Making Online teaching effective to enhance student engagement

Teaching and learning plays a pivotal role in meeting the intellectual needs of a student; be it on campus or online. Teaching today’s students requires innovative strategies to adapt to the new intellectual requirements of the students. This can be all the more challenging when teaching has to be done remotely. Given that academic institutions globally are adapting to the new normal of migrating to online mode of delivery it comes with lots of challenges. A very highly engaging session was carried out by Ms. Shanthi Rajan, Director – Institution Development, University of Stirling and SQA Diplomas as part of an FDP conducted for Higher Education Forum, India for 88 senior academicians from various Indian Universities. This FDP has 2 parts; the first session was conducted on 16th May, 2020 aimed towards addressing the importance of educators having a change of mindset (growth mindset) in adapting to the new norm of online teaching. The session further explored the challenges educators face with regards to various aspects of teaching and learning, for instance, the delivery mechanism, mind-wandering and illusions of competencies and how they can be mitigated during online sessions. Further, this session also explored the importance of using active learning approaches to retain the interest and engagement during the online sessions.