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Online Teaching the Next Academic Year: Tips and Tricks

With teaching moving online for many institutions over the upcoming academic year 20/21, lecturers are facing new challenges, especially when teaching with applied softwares. We're here to help. As statistical software providers and consultants for over 35 years, we have many years experience delivering successful executive education in econometrics and applied econometrics, both online and in person. We have taught using a variety of software, including Stata and EViews, on a large range of topics ranging from Linear regression in Stata, to machine learning in Stata, and programming in EViews.

As the Covid emergency started Timberlake was among the first companies in the UK and Europe to transfer all their training online for the rest of 2020. We wanted to provide you with advice from our expert course leaders, who found, once the initial transition happened, there was a big silver lining when teaching applied econometrics online. We spoke to Dr Malvina Marchese, from Cass Business School, about her findings.

Dr Marchese found that as a lecturer, sharing her screen with all the participants and showing them a step by step estimation turns out to be even more efficient than being in a classroom. It is much easier to follow commands on your screen and much easier for the lecturer to see each participants’ screen without having to move around.

Engagement is even more important in online education. A good lecture stream should alternate theory slides where the econometric problem is explained, with a set of practical exercises on the software. She has found Zoom to be the best platform here, where screen sharing is easy and switching from the visualizer to the software is very straight forward. Participants can actively ask questions using the chat and they can also be allowed to speak or share their screen with all the other participants.

It is simple to record an online session and provide these links to participants, so they can repeat a difficult explanation or set of coding commands as many times as needs be. This is an important benefit to online teaching and something participants of our online econometrics courses have regularly made use of.

Her advice is to ensure there is a clear structure and content layout. In many cases, the online delivery of a syllabus is slower than face to face teaching, so it is important to re-tailor your online lecture to focus on key topics and ensure that you do not run out of time.

How have you found teaching in a virtual classroom? If you have any key findings or advice, please comment below.

You can learn more about our online training courses here.

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