How to Set Up a Remote Teaching Course with Your Agora

Remote teaching is a great way of balancing the personalization that a teacher brings with the ease that an online course brings. However, even for the seasoned teacher, there are challenges to using this approach.  Luckily, we’re here to help!

For live video, audio, and presenting, Your Agora pairs well with many remote conferencing apps. Here is a list of recommended apps with feature comparisons.  Whichever solution you choose, Your Agora provides teacher training and support to help your school get started quickly.

Once you have selected the best app for your school, select a course.  With a few adjustments by the teacher, most of our existing course templates can be easily adapted for remote teaching.  Any pair work and group work should be simplified to ensure it can be done as a class or it should be removed.  Lesson plans can also be adapted to ensure all interactivity works with remote teaching.  Most of the other assignments will not have to be changed to be used.  For more information on how to easily adapt material, see our how to here.

In the school and teacher panels of Your Agora, courses can be scheduled for specific days or they can be unscheduled (if the days the course meets change often).  For more information on course scheduling, check out our teacher panel how to here and our school panel how-to here.  
Informing students on how to connect to a live class can be done in a variety of ways depending on what app you are using.  We recommend emailing instructions to them and adding the same instructions to the course with the other assignments.

When it’s time to connect, sending a reminder email is an easy way of letting your students know that the class is starting soon.  You can also message them directly with an app like Slack or Skype.  With an app like hangouts, uberconference, or zoom, you can set calendar reminders.  

Remote teaching style depends a lot on the style of the teacher and the goals of the students. These tips will ensure the best possible experience in all cases:

• Only one screen can be seen at a time.  That means the teacher can direct students and show them what to do as the teacher shares their screen or see what the student is doing when a student shares their screen but not both at the same time and not multiple students at the same time.
• For instruction, the teacher’s screen essentially becomes the board.  As such, having an app that lets the teacher draw on the screen can be very helpful.  Some of the recommended video conferencing tools have this feature built in but there are many third-party options as well.
• For in-class assessment, most of the time, the teacher can instruct the students to do their assignments, submit them, and review the answers together in real time without having to switch between screens. If you need to check a student’s work as they are doing it, it’s better to have them share their screen and follow along providing guidance.

• Assignments marked “Teacher Material” will not be visible to students.  This is a great way to provide additional guidance (like lesson plans) to the teacher as well as a great way for a teacher to take notes and save additional pedagogical material directly in the class.
• Books and other printed material are nearly impossible to effectively use in such a course.  Try to avoid them.  If absolutely necessary, see if there is a pdf version the teacher can use while sharing their screen.

• Only one screen can be seen at a time.  That means the teacher can direct students and show them what to do as the teacher shares their screen or see what the student is doing when a student shares their screen but not both at the same time and not multiple students at the same time.

• For instruction, the teacher’s screen essentially becomes the board.  As such, having an app that lets the teacher draw on the screen can be very helpful.  Some of the recommended video conferencing tools have this feature built in but there are many third-party options as well.
• For in-class assessment, most of the time, the teacher can instruct the students to do their assignments, submit them, and review the answers together in real time without having to switch between screens. If you need to check a student’s work as they are doing it, it’s better to have them share their screen and follow along providing guidance.

• Assignments marked “Teacher Material” will not be visible to students.  This is a great way to provide additional guidance (like lesson plans) to the teacher as well as a great way for a teacher to take notes and save additional pedagogical material directly in the class.
• Books and other printed material are nearly impossible to effectively use in such a course.  Try to avoid them.  If absolutely necessary, see if there is a pdf version the teacher can use while sharing their screen.

Assessing a student’s work is straightforward.  As the students submit their work, the results will show up in the teacher panel where the teacher can review them. It may be necessary to refresh the browser on some systems.  Homework, quizzes, and tests can all be done on the platform, live or outside of class hours.
Keeping students honest and assessment accurate can be a little more challenging when students are not physically in the same room. In most cases, employing the honor system and letting the students know they are only cheating themselves is usually enough.  In instances where stakes are high, there are a few simple strategies teachers can use.

Having regular short in-class assessments can provide a benchmark teachers can use for out-of-class assignments. A student who regularly does poorly on an in-class quiz but always gets their work outside of class perfect may require monitored assessment.  

For high stakes assessment, where seeking outside support may be tempting for students, monitored assessment might be warranted. Have the student share their screen with their camera on and record the session.  This way, you can see if they go to another tab, take their eyes off the screen to use another device, or are asking someone for help.  If you record the session, you don’t need the teacher there; an admin will do.

When you are ready to start creating great remote courses, Your Agora is here to help.  Click on the link below to set up a free account and/or contact us to set up a personal call to learn more about how you can provide custom quality material to your students.