Do you own a coaching institute of your own? Do you provide private tuition on a small scale? Do you want to expand your coaching classes and teach more students? If your answer is “yes”, then this article is a must read for you. Online teaching platforms have become very popular these days because they help in connecting teachers with students. One teacher can now teach even hundreds of students at once. Students can study from their home and the teacher can teach from anywhere. Both of them only need two things - a mobile phone and an internet connection. This is the simplest way of online teaching. However, if you want to add more students and teach them to earn more, you will need an advanced platform where you will not only get an option to teach freely but also restrict access to those who disturb you during the class or do not pay the fee. Free platforms have very few restrictions and it can become very tough for you to provide education online. Thus, you will need a platform that will allow you to teach students and manage their fees, send notifications on mobile, share information and take examinations easily.
Many small coaching institutions and private tuition classes that provide education to students in a locality have also started to provide education online. Most people have bought laptops or tablets for their children so that they can study online. Tuition teachers have benefitted themselves by using this infrastructure. However, if coaching institutions or tuition centres want to make the most of this opportunity, they have to use the best online teaching platform. In this article, we shall discuss what things you should look for in an online teaching app.
How is Online Teaching changing the Education Industry
Earlier, students had to visit a nearby coaching institute or tuition centre to study and clear doubts. If they wanted to score well in exams or prepare for competitive exams, students preferred to attend these classes apart from schooling. However, when COVID-19 pandemic hit the globe, movement outside homes was restricted and nobody was able to attend coaching classes. This caused problems for both students and tuition teachers.
This helped coaching management software and online coaching app providers to assist these teachers to provide education to students online. Now students don’t need to visit the coaching institute and they can attend classes online from the comforts and safety of their home. It also helps them to attend tests on a larger scale and see how they perform.
Features of Online Teaching Classroom App
An online coaching app comes loaded with a number of features. It helps the teachers and students and their parents for seamless access to quality education. Let us understand a few features that you should look into an online coaching app:
1. Live Classes
Live classes are the most important part of online teaching. You should ensure that you buy an app that works fine even with the low internet speeds far off from your coaching’s location.
2. Option to Record Classes
If the students get this facility to record their classes, it will help them go through these classes even when the tuition teacher is not available.
3. Ease of Use
An online coaching app should be very easy to use for students and teachers alike. If there will be any complexity, there are high chances that the app users may abandon the classes even if the teacher is very good in his subject.
4. Option to Manage Coaching/Tuition
This app for institutions should provide the option to manage classes and set routines and reminders. This will be highly beneficial for big coaching institutes or classes having 50 to 100 batches.
5. Automated Attendance Facility
These classroom apps should have the provision for taking attendance automatically. A software for institutions can record even the entry and exit time for each student and the duration for which they attended the class.
6. Chat and Doubt Clearing
A coaching classes app should provide the facility to students to put their doubts even during the class and get their doubts cleared.
7. Assignments and Homework
Teachers can provide assignments to all students online through this app. If the task is MCQ-based, the answers can be evaluated automatically.
8. Examination
Teachers need online educational platforms to take tests online. They can submit the question on the platform and the app can assign the test to each individual for a specific time period. If the examiner wants, he can block access for opening other windows/tabs on the phone, tablet or desktop. The online exam software is embedded in the coaching app itself to make it easy for the teachers to conduct exams.
9. Payment and Billing
The teacher also gets the facility to accept payment online by simply connecting his bank account with the online study app. Various online modes of payment such as UPI, IMPS, NEFT, RTGS, credit cards, etc. can be provided to parents of students to make the payment. Many apps can even generate the tax invoice that contains the GST details of the teacher or institute as well.
10. Feedback
A good online teaching platform should also have the option of feedback. THis is the place where the teacher is assessed by the students or their parents/guardians. Many platforms even provide the facility to send anonymous feedback. Students or parents can use this facility to communicate with the teachers and provide useful suggestions and discuss issues even anonymously.
Why Should Teachers Use Online Teaching Apps?
Providing online education can be a costly task and it is not possible for each and every coaching institute to develop an online coaching institute app of their own. These apps need specialised servers, payment gateways and other safe and secure features for proper conducting of online classes and examinations. This is not possible for every coaching institute. Similarly, it is almost impossible for a tuition teacher who teaches a few students to get a coaching app of his own and maintain it regularly.
Thus, it becomes imperative for teachers to use a third-party online classes app. Big coaching institutes can also use coaching management software to manage their classes online and take timely assessments.
There are numerous coaching apps that provide subscription-based services to coaching institutes. The teachers get to use all the services that are latest in technology and provide quality education to their students without worrying about any technical issue.
What to Look for in Online Teaching Platforms
There are various online teaching platforms having specialisation in a specific field. Some can be good in live classes, some may provide a lot of features, some may have a better examination facility, etc. When you look for an online coaching app, you should analyse your coaching size and select a plan that suits your type of teaching the best. Let us find out some of the things that you should look out for while selecting an online coaching app for your coaching:
Option for Live Classes
Classes are the most important part of the coaching institutes. This is how a teacher connects with his students. Better the features and options for live classes, more engaging will the sessions be for the students. Some apps provide the facility for live class recording, class scheduling, taking screenshots and annotations, etc. These facilities can help students to revisit their classes and understand a topic if they missed it during the class.
Rich Content Library
There are many online class management software that provide an extensive library of content such as images, diagrams, flowcharts, 2D and 3D animations, etc. for teachers. Teachers can use this content to enrich their teaching. If you do not have any problems with funds, you can choose an online coaching app that has the biggest library
Assessment and Examination
Any coaching or tuition is incomplete without proper assessment of how well the students have understood their subjects. It can be done through examinations and assessments. Many tuition apps provide the facility to conduct these tests online and provide the results as soon as the exam is over along with the ranking for each student who participated in the examination. This immediate assessment helps both teachers and students understand where the students are lagging. Also, to prevent misuse or cheating, these apps take numerous steps for a healthy competition among students.
Option to Provide Notifications
Most teachers interact with students or provide information regarding classes. This helps students stay updated with the curriculum, schedule, preparation timeline, etc. An app or software that helps teachers provide notifications, instructions or updated schedules can be very useful especially in the case of coaching institutes with a huge number of students. You should select an app that provides the facility with ease and at no extra cost.
Payment and Billing
Any service-providing app is incomplete without providing options for secure payment and billing. Access controlled login and classes help teachers get the fair share of their hard work in the form of money. Teachers can raise invoices online and share it with the parents or the guardian. And parents can make the payment through various online modes on the app itself using UPI, NEFT/RTGS, credit card, etc. More the options provided by the app, the more convenience for the parents.
Conclusion
The best teaching app varies from case to case and for every teacher/coaching institute. It depends on what the goal of a teacher is. If he wants to teach students or help them in preparing for national-level examinations, the best app for online teaching will change. For competitive exams coaching, teachers need to assess the growth of students regularly. For regular coaching classes, especially for kids, the teacher would want to have a robust platform where the app works well even at low internet speeds. Thus it is recommended that one should select an online app that meets all your requirements at the optimum costs. If you select a low cost app but either you or students are not happy with it, you will definitely have to scale up in the longer run.