As educators, even as we teach and nurture students to be the best version of themselves, we are also interested in acquiring new skills. We want to be well-equipped to give our students the best education that we can, and to do that, we must invest time––and sometimes money––in ourselves. For those of us who are budget-conscious, we are constantly on the lookout for free online teacher training courses.
As Enrique Dans writes in Forbes magazine:
“Whether we are talking about a class or an exam, the challenge is moving smoothly between a face-to-face and a virtual platform, without this impacting negatively on the learning experience.”
With school disruptions as a result of the Coronavirus, analysts such as Enrique Dans have challenged the status quo of education. Similarly, we believe that from this crisis, we have been forced to adapt and to experiment with different online teaching pedagogies. As the pandemic continues to rock the world, some of these changes are here to stay and they will indeed change education forever.
In light of these circumstances, upgrading courses for teachers to learn the best methods to teach online are even more important. Even when the pandemic is behind us, it would be beneficial to incorporate these new skills into our current curriculum.
To help teachers tide through this difficult period, we have identified eight free online teacher training courses:
- Teaching for Home Learning by National STEM Learning Centre on FutureLearn
- The Online Educator: People and Pedagogy by The Open University on FutureLearn
- English Teaching courses by British Council
- Instructional Design Models by the University of Maryland on edX
- Class Central
- Promising Practices in Online Teaching and Learning by Keith Restine
- Teacher Training Videos by Russell Stannard
- MIT OpenCourseWare
1. Teaching for Home Learning by National STEM Learning Centre on FutureLearn
FutureLearn provides over 140 free online teaching courses. One of these is the Teaching for Home Learning series that has two courses, one for primary Science and the second for Secondary Science. Each course occurs over two weeks with an estimated commitment time of three hours per week.
This series of online teaching courses were designed to help teachers adapt to online teaching in light of the Coronavirus pandemic. This course will walk teachers through the role that teachers and parents play in remote learning, as well as some pointers for conducting Science classes for students remotely.
Moving forward, teachers should ideally adopt blended learning in their teaching. In other words, this course does not merely cater to remote learning. It also aims to complement face-to-face lessons with online components.
2. The Online Educator: People and Pedagogy by The Open University on FutureLearn
After you have completed Teaching for Home Learning, consider enrolling in The Online Educator, a course that takes place over four weeks with an estimated commitment of four hours per week.
This course equips teachers with the skills to design and innovate online teaching materials. It is perfect for teachers who are curious about how to package and present online learning resources in the best way possible for students.
For free users, the course will be accessible for six weeks. Teachers have the option to upgrade to purchase the digital certificate upon course completion.
3. English Teaching Courses by British Council
British Council is one of the leading organisations that help students and teachers all over the world with the English language. Just as students can tap on the resources published by the British Council as part of their independent learning exercises, teachers can similarly learn to teach English!
The British Council offers free Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) and the content that they share are frequently switched around. Currently, the Teaching for Success series seeks to inform teachers about the latest developments around English teaching from using multimedia sources to multilingualism.
Refer to this link for the full list of free online teacher training courses offered by the British Council.
4. Instructional Design Models by the University of Maryland on edX
Instructional Design Models is one segment of the Instructional Design and Technology MicroMasters Programme offered by the University of Maryland on edX. This course imparts knowledge for teachers to craft online lesson plans, encourage collaborative learning, and to ask questions in a way that provokes thoughtful responses.
This course is for teachers who are intrigued by the rise of online learning and are curious about what ideas can be adapted into traditional approaches to education. Interested participants can enrol in this course for free, with the paid option to upgrade to a verified certificate or even to pursue the full MicroMasters programme.
5. Class Central
Class Central offers thirty-one free online teacher training courses. Of these, twenty-seven carry the option to purchase certificates. These courses are offered by schools such as the Relay Graduate School of Education, the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and the University of Colorado Boulder.
On Class Central, teachers can expect to learn about topics such as character-building, cultural diversity, and online teaching pedagogies. There is something to meet the needs of most teachers.
6. Promising Practices in Online Teaching and Learning by Keith Restine
Keith Restine initially designed and published this course for internal circulation to help his colleagues adjust to remote teaching. Now, Restine has generously published his online teaching course under the Creative Commons license for all teachers to access.
The aim of this course is for teachers to learn how to conceptualise and implement an online teaching curriculum. This curriculum will comprise online group activities, strategies to encourage active learning, and time management.
This free course is one of the most extensive and it comes with a ninety-two paged free coursebook.
7. Teacher Training Videos by Russell Stannard
We understand that some teachers may not have the time to commit to full-length online modules to upgrade their teaching skills. Fortunately, Russell Stannard produces short videos to help teachers pick up the skills necessary to teach online. These videos range from five minutes to twenty-five minutes and are perfect for teachers with limited time to spare.
Stannard imparts technical skills with tutorial videos for Zoom, Google Docs, Moodle, and other online teaching platforms. Teachers who require more help on the technical aspects of online teaching should find Stannard’s videos informative and engaging.
Please watch this video below for an introduction to Stannard’s online teaching training videos:
8. MIT OpenCourseWare
MIT is one of the world’s top universities in a variety of majors. In 2019, QS World University Rankings designated MIT as the top university in the world for the eighth year running. Everyone wants to learn from MIT, and the good news is that you can! MIT has published portions of its vast archive of course materials for anyone to peruse for free.
Under the Teaching and Education tab in the MIT OpenCourseWare course finder, there is a list of courses at the graduate and undergraduate level for teachers to view. These online modules feature recorded lecture videos and thus enables teachers to watch the seminars offered by MIT’s best lecturers in the field.
The following video is an example of a recorded lecture published by MIT OpenCourseWare on YouTube. Here, the director of MIT’s Teaching+Learning Lab, Dr Janet Rankin lectures about using educational resources in the classroom:
Summary: Taking online teaching a step further
This article has introduced you to eight free online teacher training courses:
- Teaching for Home Learning by National STEM Learning Centre on FutureLearn
- The Online Educator: People and Pedagogy by The Open University on FutureLearn
- English Teaching courses by British Council
- Instructional Design Models by the University of Maryland on edX
- Class Central
- Promising Practices in Online Teaching and Learning by Keith Restine
- Teacher Training Videos by Russell Stannard
- MIT OpenCourseWare
These courses encompass a broad range of topics to ensure teachers have the technological know-how and have the appropriate strategies for online teaching.
Here at HeyHi, we want to empower teachers to conduct interactive online lessons. At the same time, we hope to ease the burden of teachers by making it easier to host virtual lessons.
Teachers have free access to the above eight resources to understand how to teach online. However, teachers also need the technology to back up all of this knowledge. Therefore, we have developed HeyHi’s online whiteboard for educators all over the world.
HeyHi is primarily an online whiteboard with video-conferencing capabilities integrated into the platform. Since the application is designed for teachers, the aim is to cultivate a virtual learning environment that is interactive and collaborative. Therefore, the video images of participants are non-intrusive and are kept to the side of the screen to minimise distractions.
Since multiple students can collaborate and write their input on HeyHi’s shared whiteboard, HeyHi paves the way for student discussions and collaborative learning even if students are not physically together.
Students can import worksheets and notes in the form of PDF documents or images. They can then annotate and mark up the uploaded materials to share with the rest of their peers. With different coloured pens and highlighters, students can draw diagrams such as the one below to enhance and augment their learning experience. These basic drawing tools are available even for users on a free subscription plan. Teachers who want to expand their use of HeyHi to larger class sizes may find it worthwhile to upgrade to a higher tier at competitive prices.
On HeyHi’s online whiteboard, teachers retain control over how content is shared in a virtual classroom. To minimise accidental disruptions, teachers can apply screen lock and selectively permit students to provide their input as the lesson progresses.
HeyHi’s online whiteboard is ideal to deliver online lessons because it is highly accessible. Students can view and participate in lessons from their desktops. Alternatively, they can also download the application from the Apple App Store or the Google Play Store.
If you are interested in giving HeyHi’s online whiteboard a try for your next online lesson, please request a demo or even experience the user interface for yourself!