How to run an online lesson without losing the class

Online lessons fail because of structure, not technology: the teacher talks, the screen is silent, and ten minutes in nobody knows who is still there. Here is a routine that works for an ordinary school lesson.

Before the lesson

• One link, one place. A student should not have to hunt for the call, the book and the homework. Best of all is when the call, the whiteboard and the textbook share one page.
• Three exercises ready. Not “I'll ask aloud”, but concrete problems every student solves on their own device.
• Check the sound five minutes early. The first minutes of a lesson are the most expensive.

During the lesson

1. Spend the first three minutes on a question, not an explanation. One short problem from the previous topic: everyone answers, and you see who is present.
2. Explain on the whiteboard, not with slides. When a solution is written step by step, the student follows the thinking. A finished slide is only looked at.
3. Every 7–10 minutes, an exercise for everyone. Answers must reach you at once and be checked automatically, or the time goes into counting.
4. Reveal the right answer to everyone at the same moment and explain the most common mistake in one sentence.

After the lesson

Set homework from the same exercises, in the same place. At the start of the next lesson you already know which topic is weak, and for whom.

What this asks of the tool

A call with nothing to install, a shared whiteboard, exercises with automatic checking, and homework under the same account. In TutorVoice they sit on one page: see the features or try it without signing up.