1. Set goals and expectations
Giving your students a shared goal or letting them set personal goals for their course is a great way to motivate your students to participate. Giving people something to work towards gives their education purpose, so they’re more likely to put their all into your course.
At the beginning of your course, communicate clear outcomes (certification, pay raise, bonus). Remind them throughout your course of these expected outcomes to re-engage them.
2. Facilitate feedback and conversations
Online courses with a platform for student feedback (like a group chat box or an online forum software) and conversations encourage public participation. It provides a platform for students:
- to have conversations with instructors and their peers,
- to clarify or confirm understanding of course content, and
- to learn from the questions and insights of their peers
In real-life classrooms, conversations (both social and educational) are essential for student learning. It helps them talk through concepts with others to increase their own understanding. In an online classroom setting, look for an LMS that allows for digital conversations. This could be in the form of posting content on a digital discussion board or even through weekly, small group discussions over video calls with groups of students.
3. Encourage Self-Reflection
Even if you won’t read every single response, providing an opportunity for reflection helps confirm that your learners understand the course materials. It’s a way for the instructor to ensure core competencies are met and essential information is understood.
Rather than quizzes and tests, focus on open-ended questions that reinforce learning material. Have your students demonstrate their knowledge of these concepts by applying them to other areas of their life, work, or in the world.
4. Gamify your lessons
A little competition is good for comprehension and motivation. Look for opportunities to turn lesson plans into games or competitions. Here are some ways you can gamify your online lessons:
- Assign groups of students to work together to create a solution to a problem. The group with the best solution wins bragging rights.
- Create a BINGO-like game where students check off competencies or tasks to get BINGO.
- Assign badges or awards for reaching certain learning milestones.
- Create a leaderboard of top student scores or grades to motivate other students.
5. Create PDF interactive workbooks
Creating an accompanying workbook for your online course is a great takeaway that students can reference throughout the course and in the future. Make it more than a reference document and look for ways to make it interactive and hands-on. An interactive workbook is perfect for students to pause, reflect, and apply their learning.
Digital workbooks are excellent for online teaching as students don’t need to print or be mailed a hardcopy book. Interactive workbooks can be filled in online and can include links to any resources or online portals and other technology and systems you’re using for course delivery.
6. Encourage video responses
These days, most people can record a simple video (whether it be on their phone or computer). Instead of essay writing or written responses, encourage students to record a video of them discussing their answers. This video can be uploaded to your LMS or online class portal so others can view and comment. It’s a great way to encourage class discussions online.
7. Change up the format
Everyone has different learning and comprehension styles. Some learn better by listening or watching someone speak, while others prefer to read source material. Allow for various formats and styles of learning in your course.
It’s easier to keep a student's attention with shorter, bite-sized lessons, rather than longer ones. That’s why TED Talks are limited to 18 minutes, to encourage conciseness, while keeping the audience's attention. Consider following in the TED Talks footsteps and keep your lessons under 18 minutes each.
Same goes for your workbooks. With Wobo, you can group workbook exercises into modules and embed individual modules throughout your course. This helps keep content and interactivity bite-sized and organized.
Be mindful of including too much interactivity in your course. It can overstimulate your students and be more work than necessary to understand the concepts. Limit interactive elements to where students can demonstrate what they’ve learned.
8. Share bite-sized content
Online courses are usually broken into modules or sections. Break down your course materials into logical sections. Each module could teach a unique step in your process, or a focused sub-topic. Breaking it down into simple modules helps people learn better and more easily find the information they need in the future when they refer back to your teachings.
9. Use storytelling to teach concepts
Our brains are more engaged when lessons are taught through storytelling. Consider delivering more stories than lectures if you want to increase knowledge retention amongst your students. This might include sharing case studies or hypothetical scenarios that illustrate your learning topics.
You can encourage your students to use storytelling in their responses too. Provide discussion prompts and allow students to create a narrative or scenario based on that topic. It’s an excellent way for learners to demonstrate their knowledge in real-life (or fictional) applications.
10. Minimize distractions
If you’re teaching live or pre-recorded videos, minimize distractions as much as possible. Here are some great tips for video lessons without added distractions:
- Have a neutral, minimal background
- Wear clean, neutral clothing without too many logos (except your company logo) or visually distracting clothing, accessories, or items in your background that people may focus on.
- Avoid people (and pets) walking past
- Have a good working mic and high-resolution camera
- Mute other students during lectures that are not interactive to cut down on background noise from other students.