verybody loves a good challenge, and that’s what you’ve just found. We have put together 9 ways to make your online course fun and engaging, which will be sure to keep your learner engaged through content while increasing their knowledge.
Here are the topics we’ll cover:
1) Make it Interactive
2) Give Learners Options When Taking Quizzes or Surveys
3) Pre-Generate Questions in Advance for Lectures or Sessions
4) Let Your Learner Choose Their Own Method of Reviewing or Assessing Their Achievement Level of Learning Outcomes.
5) Let Your Learner Share Their Learning or Explain it to Someone Else
6) Provide an Emotional Connection with Your Content and Information
7) Let Them Create a Media File, Visual or Game and Brand It with Their Name or a Combination of Their Name, Some Kind of Image, or Word.
8) Give Them a Challenge Where They Can Earn a Privilege in the Form of Points/Scores.
9) Have a Personal Goal for Your Learner.
The following are some of the many examples of creative ways of creating interactive and engaging activities in an online course. Read on to find out how to make your course fun by incorporating these ideas into your learning platform.
1) Make it Interactive: Interactive quizzes, exercises, or games can be very helpful when creating a fast paced course that is meant to reinforce student learning, but they can just as easily create problems for the instructor if not designed properly. The trick here is to create a quiz or activity that takes advantage of your learner’s natural strengths and interest in the topic. By incorporating an element of play into your course, you will engage your learners and get them excited about completing the task for the sake of learning.
2) Give Learners Options When Taking Quizzes or Surveys: This is a much easier way to incorporate interactivity without bringing the learning experience to a halt, especially when trying to use quizzing as part of a review technique. One thing that will make this type of design work well is knowing how much time you have before taking quizzes during your session. This will give you an idea of how many options to build into your quiz along with how much text to write. Highlighted options will help learners remember what they have read and give them a little bit of brevity with their test-taking.
3) Pre-Generate Questions in Advance for Lectures or Sessions: By pre-generating questions and trying to predict which ones will be asked during your lectures, you can save time at the front end when you start class by just going through the list as you did in session one or two. Additionally, you will be able to answer questions that have already been answered during on previous sessions so that your learners will start to engage not only with the information presented but also with studying. They will start to analyze how this applies to other areas of their life. If you provide them a link for further research or for them to visit relevant websites, they will actually be learning while they practice versus just trying over and over again until they get it right.
4) Let Your Learner Choose Their Own Method of Reviewing or Assessing Their Achievement Level of Learning Outcomes: This is a great tactic to use as you are creating your online course. By giving your learners the option of how they decide how well they know something, you are giving them some control over their own learning. They will feel more confident that they are learning what they want to learn instead of just meeting your predetermined learning outcomes. This will also give them the opportunity to structure their time in a way that works with their schedule and lifestyle without feeling like it hinders their ability to learn. There is so much that can be done by designing learning activities to meet your learners’ learning styles. If you are not sure where you should start, read on to find out other ways of using your LMS to make your course interactive and engaging.
5) Let Your Learner Share Their Learning or Explain it to Someone Else: One of the best ways that you can capture and utilize learner’s energy is if they feel comfortable with sharing their learning with other people. Give them a place to do this within your online course or within an external website that they can log in and share what they have learned from the course while you still have access to it. This will allow you to utilize feedback as it is being given and incorporate it into future iterations of your course. This can also be a great way for them to socialize with each other while they learn.
6) Provide an Emotional Connection with Your Content and Information: One of the best ways to create this emotional connection is by utilizing a sense of humor. Finding pictures or videos that might make the content more relevant and engaging for your learners will also help you achieve this goal. If you can create a scenario that makes them think about how this could impact their life, they are much more likely to remember what they have learned.
7) Let Them Create a Media File, Visual or Game and Brand It with Their Name or a Combination of Their Name, Some Kind of Image, or Word: This is a great way to get them engaged with some of the content you have built into your course and to make it more relevant for them. Using tools such as Google Drive, Survey Monkey, or Potential.ly will allow you to create an activity where your learners can instantly update their status or share this information with someone else. This is also a great way for them to find out how they can create these kinds of files on their own so that they can use them in other areas of their lives outside of online learning courses.
8) Give Them a Challenge Where They Can Earn a Privilege in the Form of Points/Scores: If you have not used point-based systems in your online course, I highly encourage you do so. This is a great way to capture learner’s attention by giving them a sense of achievement for completing certain tasks or activities. It can also help to create a sense of urgency around specific deadlines within your course. You can then set up scenarios where learners need to work with other members to solve problems and complete tasks in order to achieve something greater than what they could independently.
9) Have a Personal Goal for Your Learner: I highly encourage you to make it personal and meaningful for them to wish to achieve something by the end of your course and then build that into your course. By doing this, you can create a sense of accomplishment, retention, and engagement for them.
What do you think? Is there anything else you can think of that would help keep your learners engaged and interested in online courses? If you are interested in learning more about how we can help you improve your online course experience, please schedule a meeting with us. We would love to hear from you!
Tags: engage learners, retain learners, online course engagement, online course retention, online course retention strategies, online learning engagement strategy, online learning retention strategies, retain learners in online courses, retain learners online courses
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