There is no question that online learning has boomed recently. By the end of 2024, the global revenue for eLearning is expected to exceed $185.20 billion. With more people than ever signing up for online courses, educators are trying to develop new ways to keep students engaged in their virtual classrooms.
Without face-to-face interaction, it can be difficult to capture and maintain students’ attention, which is why tutors need to get creative when figuring out strategies to boost online student engagement.
In this blog post, we’ll explore nine effective ways to keep students actively participating and motivated in their online learning journey.
🍎 Did you know? 90% of companies in the USA offer their employees some form of eLearning.
1. Create an effective eLearning platform
Creating an effective eLearning platform is important for any educator looking to bring their classroom online. Amidst the wide array of options, WordPress is the best platform for the job: it powers over 40% of the web, and is a great base for starting any eLearning platform.
Paired with your creativity and invaluable plugins like Sensei LMS, your eLearning platform can capture the hearts and minds of students anywhere in the world.
Sensei LMS allows users to create user-friendly courses while addressing the common hurdles encountered in online learning.
The plugin integrates into your website, transforming the course creation process into an experience like crafting a post or page. Its WooCommerce integration further additionally provides a vital avenue for monetizing your courses.
Sensei Pro brings you Sensei Blocks for enhanced customization to scheduling and drip lessons for a paced learning journey, group learning capabilities, automatic grading, and bespoke certificates – think of it as a toolkit for the modern educator. Including AI-powered quiz generation adds a unique touch, ensuring your assessments are as dynamic as your content.
The Sensei Bundle includes the following:
- Sensei Pro.
- A website powered by WordPress hosted on WordPress.com.
- The free Course theme.
- Crucial analytics and security, with regular updates.
2. Include interactive elements to increase engagement
As educators, your job isn’t just to present information, you need to craft an experience that captivates, challenges, and fosters a vibrant virtual community. To do this, you’re going to want to include some engaging, interactive elements in your course, such as multiple-choice quizzes.
✨ Bonus tips for success:
- Get creative with formats: Present information in diverse formats, keeping non-interactive sections concise. By catering to different learning styles, you create a dynamic learning environment.
- Incorporate interactivity: Where possible, weave in interactive elements such as quizzes. These not only gauge understanding but also inject an element of participation, turning passive learners into active contributors.
- Make your course accessible: Without a physical classroom, organization is essential. Ensure materials are well-organized and easily accessible. The more intuitive the platform, the less intimidating seeking help becomes, fostering an open channel for student inquiries.
Sensei’s interactive lessons and dynamic blocks, including features like image hotspots and flashcards, go beyond traditional teaching methods. These tools break the monotony and transform your course into an interactive journey. Sensei’s interactive blocks are the building blocks of gamification. By incorporating elements like quizzes and interactive challenges, you infuse a sense of play into the learning process.
3. Make use of multimedia content
The key to unlocking minds lies in diversity. Embrace a variety of content forms to enrich the student experience, for example, multimedia. Sensei brings educators into this realm with compatibility for VideoPress and various video players.
Diversifying content through videos, visuals, and multimedia caters to diverse learning preferences. Some people learn more easily by watching videos and digesting other visual examples like infographics, so presenting information in various ways is a great way to connect with every learner’s unique needs.
4. Keep content concise and digestible
Distraction is the enemy of online educators. In a traditional classroom, you can monitor attention and snap students back into focus – but the same can’t be said for eLearning. This means different approaches must be taken to keep students engaged and undistracted.
Long presentations and information chunks can test the limits of attention spans. To foster engagement, prioritize concise and digestible content. Tailor your teaching to the attention spans of your audience, ensuring each bit of information is easily grasped and retained.
5. Set regular checkpoints
Regular checkpoints foster retention and a sense of progression. By incorporating summaries, assessments, or a list of covered items, educators create milestones in the learning journey. Sensei simplifies this process with a tasklist block, ensuring the effective scheduling of checkpoints.
Alternatively, using the Questions Block for interactive assessments not only offers a moment of reflection but solidifies knowledge, transforming the educational voyage into a series of achievable steps.
6. Set clear learning objectives to retain student focus
Online learning comes with its own set of challenges. Recognizing this, it’s crucial to establish a foundation of focus and motivation. Begin by enforcing effective learning strategies and highlighting the inherent value of the course objectives.
Clarify the path ahead by including clear learning objectives and outcomes. This will instill a sense of purpose and align expectations, ensuring students perceive tangible value in their educational investment.
Sensei’s tailored course outline feature is the ideal solution when looking for clarity. Automate the generation of a course outline based on lesson content, allowing for customization with descriptions and resources. The AI Course Outline generator is a wellspring of inspiration for structuring courses in their initial stages.
7. Provide regular feedback
Feedback is important in any classroom setting. However, when teaching a course online, you don’t have the same opportunity to chat one-on-one with students throughout the class, so you need to find an alternative way of doing this.
Regular feedback transforms the learning experience from a one-way street into a dialogue between student and teacher, infusing a sense of self-motivation.
By using online forums for peer collaboration, you can create a vibrant community. Here, students become active contributors, elevating their role from passive learners to engaged participants. This collaborative ethos enriches the learning process and creates a sense of shared accomplishment.
With Sensei, you can choose between automatically graded quizzes or manual grading, allowing personalized feedback on assessments, including essays. Sensei extends its support further with Tutor AI, a real-time guide that provides immediate responses to student queries. This innovative feature ensures that learning isn’t bound by time zones or availability, offering a continuous support flow.
8. Maintain regular human interaction
While technology connects, human interaction elevates. Sensei recognizes the significance of direct interaction, offering a Contact Teacher button within lessons. This simple feature bridges the virtual gap, ensuring students have a direct line to your support.
Regular live video lessons or individual Zoom calls improve student satisfaction, sustain engagement, and prevent any form of isolation.
Beyond individual connections, cultivating opportunities for students to interact amongst themselves is equally important. Group projects integrating video calls and forums can transform a solitary pursuit into a communal journey.
9. Staying on top of trends in online learning
As we peer into the future of online learning, we can see significant growth and transformative changes, and the combination of technology and education, often called EdTech, is vital in this evolution.
EdTech is reshaping teaching methodologies, content delivery, and student engagement. Advances in AI and learning technologies are paving the way for personalized learning experiences driven by machine learning.
Personalized learning, powered by AI and machine learning, is becoming the new standard, and the demand for mobile-optimized learning is also on the rise, reflecting the dynamic nature of modern education.
Boosting student engagement with Sensei LMS
There is no question that eLearning comes with its own set of challenges. But, within those challenges lie opportunities for improvement. Understanding and overcoming these hurdles is the key to unlocking the full potential of online teaching.
As you start this eLearning journey, think about what Sensei LMS can do for you. From crafting a powerful platform to nurturing engagement and adapting to evolving trends, Sensei is more than a tool; it’s a partner in shaping the future of online education.
These tips, paired with the support of Sensei LMS, will transform your online learning program into a more engaging experience for everyone. Get started today!
