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Online teaching is hard. Especially if you don’t have a background in teaching or education. In this article, we want to help the new teachers of our era who are called edupreneurs, course creators, trainers, and founders improve their teaching techniques. Therefore, I listed down the most effective online teaching methods that will change the way you teach with examples and additional readings.
1. Hybrid Cohort-based Model
The hybrid Cohort-based Model is a coined term from Teachfloor, the leading learning platform for cohort-based courses. This model allows instructors to scale their cohort-based courses faster than usual without compromising the quality of the course.
The Hybrid cohort-based model works very well in online teaching because of its 70-30 strategy which combined live sessions and self-paced learning methods together. Consequently, it's good for both students and instructors by discovering the sweet spot of MOOCs and cohort-based learning models.
What makes it effective?
✅ The right mixture of asynchronous and synchronous learning (live sessions + self-paced learning)
✅ Leveraging technology using automation
✅ Collaborative learning through a community
✅ Personalized, project-based, and peer-driven learning
✅ Learning by doing approach
Examples:
- Ship30for30
- Part-time Youtuber Academy
- Be OnDeck Accelerator
Readings: Download our free eBook to start using this model and improve your online teaching method
2. Flipped Classroom
For some reason, the flipped classroom has been the gateway for active learning. Flipped classroom style is an easy-to-apply online teaching method. You just need to flip the traditional style—where teachers use their class time for lectures and then give homework to students.
Instead of this, you flip it into providing homework before starting your class where students can read, watch, and review the content. Then you can use your class time for healthy discussions, debates, answering questions, group work, etc based on the homework materials.
What makes it effective?
✅ Healthy discussion and debates during live classes instead of lectures
✅ Peer learning and collaborative learning during live sessions
✅ Enhances critical thinking, self-confidence, and listening skills
✅ Pushes students to read and review homework for class engagement
Examples:
- Content-based debates
- Group activities or projects
- Discussion forums about a certain topicUsing educational videos like TED talks as content
Readings: Flip Your Classroom by Jonathan Bergmann and Aaron Sams
3. Project-based Learning (PBL)
Project-based Learning or PBL is an online teaching method of designing your curriculum around projects that require students to apply & acquire key knowledge & skills through an engaging experience.
Take note that PBL isn’t just “doing projects”. Instead, the project creation is integrated into the process of learning where it starts with real-world problems and ends with a project presentation and reflection. PBL is popularly used in K-12 classrooms and is now adopted in online courses and Bootcamps.
What makes it effective?
✅ Real-world problems and examples
✅ Do-Learn-Redo framework, learning by doing
✅ Foster critical thinking, collaboration, creativity, & problem-solving skills
✅ Project presentation as an output
✅ Potential for adoption as a real project beyond the classroom
Examples:
- Student Farm
- Water Quality Project
Readings: How to use the Project-Based Learning approach to build learning environments
4. Learning Sprints
Data Central defines learning sprints as a collaborative, short, fast-paced learning endeavor as part of a greater, agile-oriented team effort. This online teaching method is mostly used in tech Bootcamps and apprenticeship programs.
Because tech teams are usually working in sprints, they’ve adapted this concept to make learning faster, at full speed, with an actual scenario of how to work with teams.
What makes it effective?
✅ Fast learning at full speed
✅ Learning by doing, building real-world projects
✅ Actual scenario in a real workspace
✅ Working with teams
✅ Reflective and iterative
Examples:
Readings: Learning Sprint - The Best Strategy of Bootcamps for Transformative Learning
5. Scenario-based Learning
Scenario-based learning or SBL is a context-dependent online learning method that makes use of real-life scenarios and teaches learners via simulations and case studies. Since we forget 70% of what we learned in 24 hours, making learning relatable context-wise can boost comprehension and knowledge retention.
What makes it effective?
✅ Making use of real-life scenarios and context-dependent examples
✅ Learning through simulations, dialogues, and case studies
✅ Teaches practical learning
Example: Onboarding a firefighter
Readings: What Is Scenario-Based Learning? How to Create Scenarios?
6. Game-based Teaching
Incorporating games into your teaching will surely change the trajectory of your online teaching. We all know that students learn best when it’s fun for them, it’s engaging and healthy competition. Game-based teaching improves knowledge retention and engages students in the topic.
What makes it effective?
✅ Feels like play while you learn
✅ Highly engaging and boosts teamwork depending on the game type
✅ Encourages healthy competition among students
✅ Enhances strategic thinking
Examples:
- Educational computer games
- Edtech learning apps (Kahoot!, Quizizz)
- DIY gamified learning activities
Readings: Game-Based Teaching: Practices, Roles, and Pedagogies
7. Peer Teaching
Peer Teaching occurs when students teach their fellow students with the guidance of the teacher or instructor. It’s similar to Peer Learning however, the difference is peer teaching has a proper designation of who’s the teacher and who are the students.
If you want to improve the collaborative learning experience in your classroom, use peer teaching as an online teaching method.
What makes it effective?
✅ Enhances collaborative learning
✅ Foster leadership, critical thinking, and problem-solving skills
✅ Improves motivation among students and builds up open communication
✅ Develops self-knowledge, reciprocity within peer relationships, and influences identity
✅ Accelerates social learning skills and confidence among students
Examples:
Readings: Peer Teaching: How It Improves Collaborative Learning In Your Virtual Classrooms?
8. Inter-leaving Learning Technique
This technique is where you mix several related skills together. Studies show that it can boost learning than practicing one skill at a time. This is mostly applied in cohort-based courses or live sessions where instructors switch back and forth in different activities to train students’ brains and make the class more engaging. Instead of blocking practice—the opposite of interleaving, AAAABBBCCCC, use interleaving instead ABCBACACB.
What makes it effective?
✅ Create patterns and establish connections between topics
✅ Improves performance and focus
✅ Supports short attention span
✅ Enhances critical thinking
Examples:
- Learning a foreign language - mixing things such as 15 verb conjugations, 15 vocab lessons, and 15 subject-verb agreements in one live session
- Interleaving in Classrooms
Readings: What is interleaving and how can it boost learning?
9. Micro-Learning
If you want to fight back against overloaded information, use micro-learning as an online teaching method. Microlearning is a learning technique where content is broken down into bite-sized nibbles. These snippets of information are typically a few minutes long and cover only the most essential details. Get inspiration from Tiktok videos, IG reels, and Youtube shorts where content is compressed into super short videos.
What makes it effective?
✅ Learning more focus
✅ Fights back overloaded information
✅ Enhance personalized learning
✅ Improves knowledge retention and engagement rate
Examples:
Readings: Microlearning: The Definitive Guide 2022
10. Discussion Boards & Learning Communities
Discussion boards or simply building a learning community is one of the most effective and proven online teaching methods. Creating a space where your students can share their ideas, questions, and comments, and collaborate together can bring a surmountable effect in your online teaching.
What makes it effective?
✅ Bi-directional learning happens through sharing of ideas, resources
✅ Collaborative and builds a long-lasting relationship
✅ Allows brainstorming among members
✅ Easy to build, mostly free, and highly effective
Examples:
- Sub-reddits
- Quora communities
- Your Slack channel at work
Readings: 5 Guidelines to Build a Sustainable Learning Community
11. Agile Instructional Design
Agile instructional design is a project-centric learning approach that involves people working in a collaborative setting. Thereby fostering a sense of community amongst them while making iterations and adjustments throughout the process. It encompasses five stages: Align, Get set, Iterate and implement, Leverage, and Evaluate. It’s similar to learning sprints and a project-based learning approach where the core objectives are collaboration and iteration.
What makes it effective?
✅ Highly iterative and reflective
✅ Project-centric approach
✅ Collaborative learning
Readings: Understanding Agile Instructional Design
12. Use AI to improve teaching techniques
Using AI as an online teaching method won’t replace teachers and instructors. Rather, it will enhance your teaching techniques. It’s quite overwhelming to give your full attention to every student especially if you’re the only instructor teaching your students. So how can you solve this? By leveraging technology and using AI to help you with several tasks.
What makes it effective?
✅ Minimizes administrative tasks such as grading and compiling data to track student's performance
✅ Makes personalized learning affordable and scalable
✅ Tutoring or coaching systems made easy
Examples of AI tools in learning:
Readings: How AI will change Education: Part I
Use a learning platform to execute these online teaching methods
Executing these online teaching methods is not enough to create a quality learning experience for your students. You need an all-in-one learning platform to make execution easy and where you can scale faster.
If you’re running a cohort-based course—or you’re planning to, Teachfloor is designed for the course’s scalability with affordable subscription plans. Give it a shot and try it for 15-day free trial.
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