Third, Work on Engaging Your Virtual Learners

This is the fourth article in a five-part series. Start here - 4 Big Tips for pivoting your courses from in-person to online.

It’s a common misconception that eLearning/virtual learning means learners with glazed eyes, clicking next in a race to reach the finish line! Research shows that it is the methods employed, and not modalities of learning, that makes all the difference. A well-designed and executed virtual session can easily be more engaging than a dull face to face lecture, and an artfully developed eLearning module can entice thinking and impact behavior. The magic recipe is deceptively simple – pay attention!

Pay attention to your learners’ experience in synchronous course delivery

How can you reach out and connect to your virtual learners when they are joining your web session from remote locations, different time zones and a plethora of varying diversions? One thing you have going for you: the fact they are present to learn means they are motivated. All you have to do now is not kill that spirit with a monotonous, one-sided delivery of content. Here are some ideas to keep those eyeballs from drifting away from the screen:

1. Start with an icebreaker – much as you would in a face to face situation. I like starting my session with a whiteboard for early joiners. I leave a simple question on it with instructions on how to use the whiteboard technology – and they can experiment and get used to the tech while waiting for the session to start. A poll or such works equally well.
2. Build a community of learners – Use the chat function effectively to have a parallel discussion running with your audience. This is an uber-cool and effective use of tech but requires some confidence on part of the presenter. Used well, this often becomes the most useful part of a virtual session, allowing participants to network and comment and thus remain continually engaged.
3. Provide materials before your session starts –Attendees do not have to worry about taking screenshots or notes and can actively engage with you on the topic. Keep time for questions, but also have sufficient material at hand in case there are not enough questions from the audience.

Pay attention to building authentic engagement in asynchronous eLearning

Engagement in eLearning is something very close to my heart. But authentic engagement is markedly different from simple interactivity and visual razzmatazz!

Authentic engagement grasps the learner’s attention through sound pedagogical design of relevant content, meaningful interactions and user-centric design, all working in a beautiful synergy to provide one holistic learning experience.

It is the utopia that we in the eLearning industry continuously strive for. To achieve that, you want to include:

1. Only relevant content – A typical rookie mistake when building online courses is to put in a lot of content in a course. Afterall, length of a course is not only easily quantifiable, but also a standard CYA measure – why take the risk of leaving anything out? I invite you to think of this as clutter in a room – not only is a lot of it non-essential, you also run the risk of losing your learners’ attention and with it their ability to focus on the essential stuff. Work patiently with your subject matter expert and a sample learner population to identify what content is truly relevant and park the rest in links, resources, optional pop-ups and such.
2. Meaningful interactions – The keyword here is meaningful. The number of times one needs to click something to get to the end of course is not a metric of engagement. Having said that, meaningful interaction is like a multi-use Swiss knife you can use very effectively. The right interaction not only breaks up the monotony of content delivery, it can be used as a formative assessment, reflection opportunity, a recall, or higher-level thinking prompt. Remember that the learner is not a passive receptacle but is actively processing your content as they receive it. Technology today allows us many ways to bring interaction in asynchronous content – make sure it is backed by solid pedagogical considerations.
3. User-centric design – Consider your end users and what their needs are when designing an asynchronous learning module. Are they up for your gamified solution? Does your text render well on their mobile devices? Do they understand your terminology? Deliberate carefully on pros and cons if you choose to restrict navigational flow in any way (such as locking slides until all content is seen). Good design is in itself an engagement device, and poorly designed courses can lose learners in no time. You want them to be actively involved in your course- take the effort to learn about what it means to them.

Assessments – what works well

In corporate contexts, sometimes this means passing a compliance quiz with 80% pass marks. In the Higher-Ed space, it may mean formative and summative graded exercises. In the K-12 space this could take another form, such as a number of assignments. But you may be surprised to learn that assessments can actually be very effectively used as an engagement tool. This is an especially favorite topic of mine – I researched and wrote my masters paper on this!

Assessments come in many forms. Assessment of learning measures a learner’s achievements, while Assessment as learning advances a learner’s understanding. Assessments also provide you, the instructor and/or course designer, with valuable data on how to improve your course. Mindfully include as many types of assessment as you can in your course to enrich it, but also to increase active engagement and participation from your learners. Research shows that learners feel more involved and interested in a learning experience when they know that assessments are a part of the mix—not only at the end, but on the way.

It’s a truism that student engagement is the holy grail of learning. And this is equally true when your course is virtual.