Online teaching – hints and tips

 by Suzie Williams
Academic Liaison Librarian (University of Sunderland)
CILIP NE Secretary

Like many information professionals involved in teaching, since the March lockdown I have been doing lots of online continuing professional development to explore the possibilities for converting face-to-face teaching into a suitable online format for my students. Here are a few hints and tips that I have picked up along this journey which you may like to explore for yourself. 

• Make your participants feel comfortable – give them the ground rules and show them how to take part. 
• Getting participants to use tools like the online whiteboard as people arrive, so they know how to use the tools during the session. Eg. you could get people to draw the weather where they are on, to experiment with different pen widths or colours.
• Don’t be worried if students don’t engage with the tool you have chosen – think about ways you can adapt within a session.
• There is a chat section in many webinar/online teaching softwares that you can use to get your learners discussing, sharing ideas and asking questions. 
• There are free tools you use to create an wordsearch people could do as they arrive (to keep people engaged whilst waiting for everyone to arrive).
• Having a focal-point on your slides – eg. using the 2/3 rule in photography
• Use of copyright free images
• Purpose of using text on slides isn’t to remind you what to say! Anything on your slides should act as a focal point for what you’re talking about.
• Have good contrast of text and background – whilst this varies between individuals, often light text on dark background is helpful.
• In the Western tradition of reading our eyes move from left to right – think about this in terms of your audience – where do you want people’s eyes to go?