Here are 5 quick tips you can take away today to help you run your online dance classes more effectively:
- Create a neat and tidy setting. You don’t want any distractions in your background so that your students can focus on you and your lesson. You might need to move furniture around at home to create this setup.
- Good lighting can help tremendously. If possible, try to position the light source behind your camera and let the light, coming from in front of you, shine on you. If there’s light coming from behind your back, for example through the windows, cover it with curtains so that the camera doesn’t capture a silhouette of you.
- Think about your sound and audio setting. The best audio setup for your music is to play it from the same device that is taking the video of your class. So if you’re using Zoom on your laptop for example, playing the music from that laptop will eliminate the sound delay. If you want to use an external speaker, use a cable connected to your laptop. Also remember to mute all your students when you teach to avoid any audio distortion. You can allocate time for when your students can unmute themselves to ask questions, or ask them to raise their hand when they need to speak and you can then unmute them.
- Live or pre-recorded? It really depends on your situations and what your students would prefer. The best way, if possible at all, is a mixture of both. At your designated class time, you can go “live” with your students. Send them the link to the class and ask them to log in 5-10mins before class so that you can start on time. You can then send them the video recording of the class, or send a different pre-recorded video of just the whole routine to help them practise outside class.
- There will be times when you get frustrated with the technology or things get difficult and discouraging. When that happens, remember that online training is still training. Keep reminding yourself of the reasons why you teach dance. You are still helping your students learn to dance here.
Hang in there, folks. This difficult time shall pass soon. Many countries have lifted the lockdown and started opening up again now. Keep getting yourself familiar with offering online dance classes though, because they’re here to stay. Plenty of Dance Instructors and Dance Studios are currently upping their game with online classes and are ready to accelerate their studio growth by offering both services. We don’t want to get left behind. Reach to us if you need help to grow your dance business, not only to survive but to THRIVE. We’d love to hear from you.
