Strategies to shift to effective online education during the
pandemic
Preliminary reports suggest that students had an overall positive
experienced with online education during the COVID-19 lockdowns (Agarwal
& Kaushik, 2020). The personal experience of authors in attending
workshops has been very positive. For example, an interactive workshop
on introduction to microbiome 16S rRNA analysis workshop proved to be
uniquely informative because of the screen sharing option whenever a
trainee encountered problems. Breakout room option available on Zoom
provides a great way for addressing individual trainees’ problems. Bao
(W. Bao, 2020) summarises strategies successfully adopted at the Peking
University to shift all the courses online. The instructor should
anticipate and prepare for unexpected online platform shutdown due to
user overload. They should avoid overwhelming the students with new
information and as much as possible, should divide the lesson into small
modules. Due to the limited scope of online interaction including
restricted appreciation of body language and facial expression in the
online platform, the instructor should attempt to use their voice
effectively and speak more slowly. Technologically savvy teaching
assistants could greatly facilitate an online teaching session. The
successful online learning depends to a large extent on the student’s
learning activities beyond the online classroom. Therefore, the
instructors are advised to enhance motivation of the students by
designing engaging assignment (W. Bao, 2020).