Strategies for Effective Online Teaching and Student Learning

This reflective essay explores strategies for effective online teaching and enhancing student listening abilities. It begins with an abstract and table of contents, followed by an introduction that defines online teaching and its benefits for both students and teachers. The essay then delves into strategies students can use to improve their listening skills, such as maintaining eye contact, asking questions, being attentive, paraphrasing, and utilizing technology. It also provides recommendations for teachers to help students understand lectures, including creating a comfortable environment, incorporating visuals, including opportunities for active learning, preparing notes, using gestures and eye contact, and focusing on clear communication. The essay concludes with recommendations for both students and teachers and emphasizes the importance of excellent listening skills for overall performance and productivity.

Reflective Essay
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Abstract
Online teaching is gaining importance day be day and it is important for both students as
well as students to adopt different strategies or methods in which the overall learning can be
enhanced. These methods can include asking questions, maintaining eye contact, increasing the
use of visuals, gestures etc.
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Table of Contents
Abstract............................................................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
Analysis and Discussion..................................................................................................................4
Strategies that students can use to improve their listening ability..........................................4
How can teachers help students understand their lectures? Provide some recommendations5
Recommendations...........................................................................................................................7
CONCLUSION...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8
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INTRODUCTION
Online teaching can be referred to as the practice of using different online techniques so
that candidates can learn from a distance. There are many benefits of teaching online because it
provides a flexibility of location as well as time. Online learning is an enriching experience for
both students as well as teachers (Coskun, 2010). Not only this, the students get to learn a lot of
new information when they attend classes online. Teachers can use different methods to help the
students enhance their overall learning. The report explains different strategies that students can
use in order to improve their listening ability. It also includes different recommendations about
how can teachers help the students in understanding their lectures in an effective manner.
Analysis and Discussion
Strategies that students can use to improve their listening ability
Listening can be defined as the ability of an individual to receive and interpret messages
in an appropriate manner. It is considered to be a key component for effective communication.
There are many benefits of having active listening skills (Lumpkin, Achen and Dodd, 2015). The
benefits include an improvement in the overall productivity, less misunderstandings etc. Students
are required to have effective listening skills which they can use to learn a lot of new
information. In order to improve their overall listening ability, students can make use of different
strategies which are explained below-
Maintain Eye Contact – Students should maintain eye contact at all times because this
helps in making them seem reliable, confident and honest (Nilson, 2013). Also, this is considered
to be an encouraging way in which interest can be communicated. Eye contact is a very
important body language sign for effective communication as well as conversation. If students
will maintain an eye contact with the person they are talking to, this will show that they are
actively listening to what is being said.
Ask Questions – Another way for the students to improve their listening ability is to ask
as many questions as possible. This is because when the students ask questions, they show that
they are interested in the topic and are eager in getting specific information from their professor
or tutor. It should be kept in mind that the questions are open ended and not close ended (8 Tips
To Improve Your Listening Skills For Better Communication, 2020). This is important because it
can lead to a constructive discussion on the topic.
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Being Attentive – A lot of students don't take this seriously, but it is important for them
to remain attentive during class. The students must pay attention to what is being said in the
class. This is because it can help them not only in increasing their focus levels, but also have an
improved productivity level (Bell, 2010). Therefore, this is a strategy which students can use
these days, especially when classes are being conducted online through Zoom and they have to
learn a lot of new information.
Paraphrasing – This is another strategy which the students can use to improve their
overall listening skills, This is because it can help them in understanding the points that are made
by the speaker. Paraphrasing can provide an opportunity to build effective listening skills. This
will not only be helpful for the academics but also for career development. This is a great
strategy because it helps in preventing any kind of misunderstanding and confusion.
Utilize Technology Effectively – Students should utilize technology in an effective
manner so as to enhance their overall listening ability (Field, 2010). There is a lot of educational
technology available today, which the students can use to enhance their overall learning.
Technology can act as a good alternative for learning. For example, a recorder can be used to
record the lecture that is being delivered by the professor.
How can teachers help students understand their lectures? Provide some recommendations
Lectures are considered as a very appropriate tools as well as technique within classroom
in order to encourage students to increase their learning in an appropriate manner (Hamid and et.
al., 2015). Therefore, they provide the lectures for increasing the knowledge and skill of the
student that is necessary for them. Hence, there are various tools which are used by teacher for
increasing the learning of students in an appropriate manner that is going to be mentioned below:
Create a comfortable environment herein the main purpose of teacher is to create a
positive Ambience for it students to increase their skills as well as knowledge that help in career
progression as well as development (Cheng, 2017). Therefore, the main purpose is to encourage
the employees by offering the environment in which the student is comfortable to learn more and
more things.
Incorporate visuals here in the teacher focuses on increasing the learning by using both
visual as well as verbal information. The incorporate visuals help in increasing the knowledge of
any student by providing them clarified purpose in order to reduce the extra information and
provide them the strategy in order to increase the learning by adopting incorporate visuals.
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Include opportunity for active learning the teacher focuses on providing more and
more opportunity to the students for increasing their learning during the particular phase of time
period (Brownell, 2015). It helps in increasing engagement of student by offering kind of
platform that helps them in increasing their learning in particular period of time.
Prepare notes here in the teacher focuses on preparing notes for the student that help
them in increasing understanding regarding the every chapters in an appropriate manner. They
also focus on clarify the concept and clearly explain the detail in relation to formulas as well as
other information that is must for the particular student. It also helps the student in resolving the
problem in an appropriate manner during the particular phase of time period.
Use gesture, eye contact to increase the involvement of student here in the teacher
focuses on making eye contact with other student in order to increase their engagement in
classroom. They continuously ask them the question in order to check the appearance of student
mentally within classroom.
Focus on communicating teacher focuses on communicating with students in clear
manner. It is necessary for teacher to communicate them in clear manner by asking them to have
any problem regarding the particular chapter that help in resolving them and also they make
informal conversation with an a student in order to know the issues and problems of students in
appropriate manner.
Therefore, from the above analysis, it can been assessed that there are various tool which
is used by the teacher in their lecture in order to enhance the learning as well as knowledge of
particular student during the particular phase of time period (Milman, 2012). It helps them in
increasing their knowledge and skill that is helpful in career progression as well as development.
Teachers play an important role in helping students to understand their respective
lectures. It is recommended that they prepare notes before raking a class as this will allow them
to deliver an informative lecture in a structured manner. Consecutively, the students will also be
able to take down proper notes and understand the topic in a proper manner (Aguilar and
Rodríguez, 2012). The teachers are also recommended to increase the use of eye contact and
hand gestures as these can help in creating a sense of involvement among the students. As a
result, their overall productivity will improve and they will be able to get a better hold of the
subject which is being taught.
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Recommendations
By completing the above report, there are certain recommendations which the students as
well as teachers should implement in order to ensure effective learning. The students are
recommended to maintain eye contact with the professor to maintain focus on the topic that is
being taught in the class. Apart from this, the students are also recommended to ask questions
and remain attentive. This will help them in participating in the discussion about a particular
topic. The teachers on the other hand, are recommended to make use of different visual aids to
increase the level of participation within the class. As a result, the students will be able to
understand their lectures in an effective way.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it can be concluded that having an excellent listening ability is
considered to be important for all students. This is because it con6tributes to their overall
performance as well as productivity levels. In order to improve the same, there are many
strategies that students can use. The different strategies can include maintaining an eye contact,
asking questions, using technology etc. Similarly, teachers can also use various methods in order
to help the students understand their lectures. They can increase the use of hand gestures, prepare
notes and use visuals. This can lead to the students understanding the topic much more
effectively.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Aguilar, M. and Rodríguez, R., 2012. Lecturer and student perceptions on CLIL at a Spanish
university. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism. 15(2).
pp.183-197.
Bell, S., 2010. Project-based learning for the 21st century: Skills for the future. The clearing
house. 83(2). pp.39-43.
Brownell, J., 2015. Listening: Attitudes, Principles, and Skills (Subscription). Routledge.
Cheng, G., 2017. The impact of online automated feedback on students' reflective journal
writing in an EFL course. The Internet and Higher Education. 34. pp.18-27.
Coskun, A., 2010. The Effect of Metacognitive Strategy Training on the Listening Performance
of Beginner Students. Online Submission. 4(1). pp.35-50.
Field, J., 2010. Listening in the language classroom. ELT journal. 64(3). pp.331-333.
Hamid, S. and et. al., 2015. Understanding students' perceptions of the benefits of online social
networking use for teaching and learning. The Internet and Higher Education. 26. pp.1-
9.
Lumpkin, A., Achen, R. M. and Dodd, R. K., 2015. Student perceptions of active learning.
College Student Journal. 49(1). pp.121-133.
Milman, N. B., 2012. The flipped classroom strategy: What is it and how can it best be used?.
Distance learning. 9(3). p.85.
Nilson, L., 2013. Creating self-regulated learners: Strategies to strengthen students? self-
awareness and learning skills. Stylus Publishing, LLC..
Online
8 Tips To Improve Your Listening Skills For Better Communication. 2020. [Online]. Available
through:<https://www.thelawofattraction.com/8-tips-improve-listening-skills/>.
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