5 Key Benefits of E-Learning for Teachers (and Students)

E-learning has been pushed into the educational limelight by the global pandemic. Most teachers have needed to teach remotely or online, perhaps in video lessons or by uploading tasks for students.

For many of you, this will have been your first experience of online learning. How did you find it? How well did your students engage?

Pre-pandemic research completed at the Chinese University of Hong Kong shows that young people are overwhelmingly in favor of online learning. Around 90% of students surveyed found it beneficial and useful.

We must remember that our children, teens and young people are all digital natives. They are digitally literate and fluent, and most own the technology that enables them to engage in online learning.

So, where do we go from here? Now face-to-face teaching and tutoring has returned in many places, should educational settings carry on with online learning? Should they be looking to invest in high-quality e-learning programs?

And what are the benefits of e-learning for teachers? And what benefits can they pass onto their students? We discuss the answers to all these questions here and give you 5 reasons why you should consider e-learning to be a really valuable resource.

1. Personalized learning

Good online learning programs allow self-paced learning as well as choice for students. Never has it been easier for teachers to personalize classes for their students. A high-quality learning program should be combined with assessment through a learning management system. This makes it straightforward to create an individualized learning pathway for students based on their prior achievements.

Learning management systems help both students and their teachers track their progress. A teacher can very quickly identify gaps in student knowledge or problem areas. The teacher can use this information to target further teaching and activities at solving the issues.

2. Streamlined teaching

E-learning can save teachers and students valuable time that can be redirected towards effective teaching and learning. Consider first that the commute to class has gone. In-class distractions are also eradicated. Even if students are working in a real-time e-learning environment, interruptions are minimized and the lesson can keep up a good pace.

Automated quizzes and marking save the teacher even more time. Online resources, including instructional videos, can also be reused or tweaked. The days of spending hours at the photocopier are also gone. This saved time can then be used to improve the quality of the next stage of the course and to personalize experiences for students.

3. Flexible courses

Teachers are used to strict timetables and long hours in their working week. However, adding elements of e-learning can make the job more flexible. When less hours are spent face-to-face teaching in a classroom, a teacher has more choice when it comes to time management of other tasks.

Uploading of materials, recording instructional videos, creating tasks for pupils and monitoring assessments can happen anytime and anywhere, within reason. This makes the job more family-friendly and compatible with other interests and commitments.

Investing in e-learning is also much more future-proof in an uncertain world. It offers flexibility in this sense that a return to classroom teaching cannot.

Students benefit from this flexibility too. Asynchronous e-learning allows students the same autonomy when it comes to when and where they learn. Pupils can take part in a lesson at their own pace, even returning over and over to recorded materials and online readings if necessary.

4. Improved accessibility

E-learning opens up courses to a wider range of students. If you work in a setting that offers part-time learning, professional development courses, holiday camps or out-of-school tutoring, then e-learning can open your doors to even more students.

Your pupils are no longer constrained by travel times or long distances and the costs associated with these. Physical barriers that might have prevented attending your class are removed too. Quite simply, if pupils only need an internet connection and some free time to access your classes, your pool of potential pupils is very large. 

5. Simplified communication

It might feel counterintuitive that less face-to-face teaching could improve communication. However, many teachers who regularly use e-learning report good communication with their pupils. We are now working with a tech-savvy generation who are very comfortable using online chat for support, writing emails and communicating through online video calling. Online learning may actually increase pupil-teacher interaction.

As another example, a teacher is introducing a difficult concept in online math classes for kids. In a classroom setting, feedback might involve nodding heads or putting hands up to demonstrate what they have and haven’t understood. In a live lesson, however, entire classes of pupils can simply respond with anonymous thumbs up/down emojis.

Increased pupil engagement with feedback opportunities gives a better picture of teaching impact in real-time. Questions can also be asked in the chat function, which may suit less confident pupils better.

The future of e-learning

In summary, e-learning has some very real benefits for teachers. It can allow you to better target your teaching to your individual pupils. It can free you from some traditional constraints of the profession and can help you manage your time better. Plus, it engages a generation of digital learners.

Expect increasing interest and engagement in e-learning from both teachers and learners. Our involvement with digital online education may have been hastened by the pandemic in many incidences, however it certainly looks like it is here to stay.