Sparking online joy: five ways to keep students engaged

Keeping students engaged is a big challenge and one that’s key to making a short online course successful. With a diverse audience, a variety of learning preferences and a multitude of distractions in the online space, how can you create a course that successfully retains students’ attention? Here, we explore five guiding principles for designing an online course that is engaging and enjoyable.

1. Bitesize is boss

Online learning takes place in a world full of distractions – so, as an educator, you have to work harder to get and keep your audience’s attention. To ensure your students have the best chance of focusing their attention on your learning materials, design your course so that it contains lots of smaller, bitesize chunks of information and short activities. For example, you could ask students to watch a one-minute video and then answer three knowledge check questions to receive automated feedback. Or you could introduce a pause point for reflection on a topic, include some guiding questions and encourage students to share and discuss their responses in a forum or collaborative space such as Padlet or Miro. This will prevent cognitive overload and facilitate knowledge retention. Students might be fitting their studies around other personal commitments, trying to grab a spare five or ten minutes whenever they can, so being able to dip in and out of the course and complete mini tasks in short sittings will make learning much more manageable.

2. Variety and interactivity

Variety isn’t just the spice of life. It’s also the spice of great online learning. When designing a course, include a range of activities and consider the format of the content. Audio interviews, visualised data and short explainer videos are just some examples of producing captivating content. Make sure content is accessible, so consider high-quality audio, meaningful alt-text and video transcripts, or students will be put off straight away. Give students lots of opportunities to reflect and explore the topics being presented, rather than overloading them with information. Focusing on exploration and curiosity will get your students hooked. Problem-solving, scenario-based activities, interactive games and peer discussions will challenge students and make them feel positively motivated.

3. Make it meaningful

When students find meaning in new information, they connect more deeply with it and the learning process requires much less effort. If students are asked to reflect on their own personal experiences and the course materials evoke emotions, they’re much more likely to have a meaningful experience overall. To do this, include real-world examples, stories and case studies from a range of contexts so that students can put the learning into their own contexts, allowing them to connect more deeply with it. Speaking to your students’ emotions is generally considered to be one of the most effective ways to stimulate engagement.

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4. Build a community

One of the myths about online learning is that it’s an isolated experience. Many online students report that they actually feel more engaged online because they have a huge, diverse learning community at their fingertips. When designing a course, include lots of opportunities for students to interact with their peers through activities such as discussions, solving group tasks, and sharing and commenting on each other’s work. The more feedback students give and receive, the more they will feel inspired and motivated to continue learning.

5. Less is more

It can be tempting to pour every last drop of your knowledge into a course, but less is definitely more when it comes to engaging your students. Think of your subject area as a swimming pool: a short online course is the shallow end, and the deepest end of the pool is where you’d find the PhD students swimming. To ensure you stay at the shallow end, keep a core focus in mind for each piece of content. If you find yourself expanding on a topic, that’s your next piece of content. For example, videos under five minutes, with around a 700-word script, have the highest level of engagement. After the five-minute mark, attention tends to fall away very quickly. Similarly, a student is much more likely to read a whole article if it’s less than 800 words long.

The art of crafting engaging online experiences hinges on making your content as interesting and accessible as possible. By offering bitesize learning, embracing variety and interactivity, infusing meaning into content, fostering a learning community and adhering to the “less is more” principle, you can create a course that captivates your audience and cultivates a lasting love for learning. With these strategies in your toolkit, you’ll be well-equipped to design a course that leaves a lasting impression.

Lizzy Garner-Foy, Andrés Ordorica and Marcello Crolla are instructional designers at the University of Edinburgh.

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