How to Use Active Listening When Teaching an Online Course

An essential skill for your teaching toolbox is active listening.

When you’re teaching an online course, how do you make sure your students are learning?

How do you ensure that your course is an active and engaging learning environment?

What Is Active Listening?

Active listening is a technique developed for deep understanding.

It’s not just hearing or listening passively but taking in what you hear and truly absorbing it.

This technique should be used by both students in learning course material and by teachers in checking for students’ understanding.

The basic process is to listen to what the speaker is saying, and then summarize the main points back to them in your own words to make sure that you understood them completely.

It demonstrates that you understand and, if you don’t, clarifies the main points of the speaker so that you do.

Using this in the Online Learning Environment

In an in-person classroom environment, we have non-verbal clues such as eye contact, nodding, and open body language to show the speaker that we understand what they’re saying.

One of the challenges of teaching and learning online is that we don’t have these cues available to us.

This is why active listening is critically important in the online learning environment.

It’s also important because it’s harder to build a trusting relationship in an online environment, and this kind of relationship is essential for teaching.

Active listening helps to build this close bond between teacher and student.

How You Can Use Active Listening Online

Active listening facilitates the two-way communication necessary for online learning.

Both teacher and student should use it.

As the teacher, you can use this when requesting feedback from your students.

When you ask for comments or feedback from your student, repeat back to them the main points of what they said to make sure you fully understood.

This shows that you were listening and understand what they’re saying.

You can also use this skill to check for students’ understanding.

Ask them to summarize what they learned and fill in any details they seem to have missed.

It can also be useful for peer-to-peer communication during activities or discussions.

Tips on Active Listening

Active listening requires your full attention.

No matter how much you’re tempted to, don’t multi-task during online courses and especially when a student is speaking.

Don’t add judgments or opinions when repeating back what someone said.

Simply paraphrase the most important points.

You can save discussion and opinions for later after you’ve clarified your understanding.

Don’t interrupt when someone is speaking.

Let them finish fully before you clarify their main points.

You can still use non-verbal communication in an online environment.

If you’re running a live training session over video, your students can see you, so nod, maintain an open posture, and make appropriate interjections to show you’re listening.

It takes some effort to master active listening at first, but soon it will become second nature, and this is a skill you can use in any area of your business or personal life.

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