How to Keep Students Engaged In Your Online Classes

Online courses are incredibly versatile and can be a powerful device for various companies. A blogger could sell courses regarding cooking, organization craft, interior design. Accounting firms could offer classes on budgeting and taxes. A music shop online might sell guitar-related classes online in addition to their sheets of music and other instruments.

However, regardless of the kind of course you offer, student engagement is critical. Interested, invested learners complete the courses, register for additional ones, leave favorable reviews, and then recommend your company to friends.

We'll look at some actionable ways to make your classes more engaging.

1. Break your courses into digestible pieces

Our attention spans aren't very lengthy. There are a variety of studies that report different lengths of time, but the majority are in agreement that our attention span falls somewhere between 20 and 30 minutes.

It's possible that you have high-quality engaging content that you can create hours worth of curriculum -- that's great! However, your students might not be able to engage for that long at a time.

A great method to deal with this issue is to break your courses into digestible parts using subcategories and categories. If, for instance, you're selling a course on beginning solids for infants You could break it down into groups such as:

• Introduction to solids
• What is the best time to introduce solid food?
• The signs of the readiness
• Gear and equipment that you need
• First feeding schedule
• First-rate food items to try
• How do you cut and prep
• Examples of recipes
• Introducing allergens
• Common food allergens
• Warning signs to watch for
• Strategies for serving allergens

Each grouping might contain sections of text, pictures video, or other sources. Students are able to complete them at their own pace -regardless of whether they wish to tackle one at a time or sit down and go through all of them at one time.

Sensei LMS refers to these categories as Courses, Modules, and Lessons. It is possible to divide each Course into Modules of any size Then break each Module up into several lessons.

This makes the navigation process extremely simple for students and lets them quickly know what's happening throughout the course.

2. Make powerful graphics

Graphics are a efficient way to connect with your students. Approximately 65% of the general population are visual learners, so not only do images add interest to your courses, they can also help convey concepts more effectively.

There are lots of ways to include images in your courses. If you're listing numerical data, add a chart or graph to represent that data. If you're comparing the difference between two ingredients, include photos of them side-by-side. If you're talking about a particular kind of houseplant, include pictures.

When creating graphics or choosing images, remember a few basic tips:

• Choose high-quality pictures. While you don't necessarily need to hire an experienced photographer, you should make certain that the pictures you buy or create look professional. The subject should always be clear -- no blurry images! And the lighting must make the photo easily digestible.
• Take into consideration the white space. White space refers to the blank area around the contents of the image. If you've got a line of text or pie chart, you'll need to leave enough area around it to allow it to breathe. This will help people digest the content of your graphic and comprehend its significance.
• Add photos of people, when appropriate. Humans are naturally drawn to facial expressions, and our attention naturally shifts to faces. Adding photos that include an attractive face will aid in connecting people to you and your subject matter.
• Avoid getting too complex. Avoid adding tons of busy pictures that clash with one another and with the content that is educational in your classes. Be aware that the images you use will be used to attract attention, make things more interesting, and assist in learning. Sometimes, simple is best.

3. Attract a range types of learners

Each person learns differently. There are many learning styles, and if you want to engage as many learners as you can, try to be able to appeal to them all when you can. The following are the most commonly used, and how to meet the requirements of each type of learner:

• Read/write The students who learn this format learn most effectively through words. Write down instructions in writing and provide information for them, either within the pages of the course or as downloadable PDFs.
• Visual: Graphics, images as well as videos work for this style of learner. Actually, in an experiment, people remembered 95 percent of the message when watching a video in comparison to only 10% of the text. Video can be a efficient method to educate on the internet.
• Auditory: These types of students prefer to learn information through listening and speaking. So you might include videos of you explaining ideas that your students could watch. You could also provide access to a podcast as part of your class, have a weekly Zoom meeting that allows one-on-one discussion, or even include songs in your lessons.
• Kinesthetic students learn through hands-on experiences who benefit from physical figuring things out themselves. Although this may be difficult for online learning, let your imagination run wild! Give students sewing patterns to try out, give them the list of pictures they have to capture for the next week, or ask learners with creating a logo themselves.

Imagine that you offer online cooking classes. If you were to appeal to all four learning styles in one module, you might have several paragraphs on the principles of making bread rise. Include an infographic detailing the science behind it, include a video of you demonstrating how to explain the basic principles as well as assigning students to the job of making their own bread loaf.

4. Employ a captivating Narrator

When you're filming videos to teach your students, an effective narrator can make a world of impact. If you're fond of audiobooks, you probably understand this concept. An uninteresting, boring voiceover could send listeners to sleep. On the other hand, a voiceover with a personality that's interesting and engaging has the opposite effect.

It's important that your narration conveys the mood of the course. Does your subject sound fun and quirky? Sensitive and serious? Reliable and useful? The content you upload should reflect this.

Make sure you get your narration's pace right in addition. It can be easy to speak too fast in your voiceoversand create a challenge for your learners to understand your instructions. Check your recordings. If your voice is too fast begin again.

Do not try to mimic your favorite voiceover artist. It's not possible to sound anything like Morgan Freeman no matter how difficult you try, which is not what students are looking for. Be yourself!

If you feel like this isn't your strong suit then that's fine. There are great professional voiceover artists available for hire which don't cost you the price of a pound and a half.

5. Incorporate polls, quizzes and other questions.

Questions and polls are an excellent option to gauge the amount students take in, learn more about them and get them involved at an even higher quality. They can also help break up your content with things that are fun and interesting.

You could also start each lesson with a questionnaire. The poll can be used to solicit questions that will help you educate students or even just encourage them to share something enjoyable about themselves. What do they hope to learn from your course? What is their most difficult accounting point? What's their favorite song? How many cakes have they prepared?

You can also mix quizzes throughout your course. In the case of Sensei LMS it is possible to create quizzes linked to lessons. So you can create questions that are based on lessons the student recently completed. Mixing up question types such as multiple choice, True/False and fill-in the empty space, short answer etc. -- can also make things more exciting.

There is the option of setting question types like multiple choice and true/false to be auto-graded and then mark open-ended question yourself. This gives you the opportunity to discover areas that could be improved for your courses, and help any student who might need a little additional assistance.

6. Create an community

One of the major difference between the physical and online learning spaces is the amount of community engaged. Students taking online classes do not have the privilege of sitting with other students in the same class talking about topics, and asking questions out in front of them.

Create a similar atmosphere by creating an online community, either on a social media platform such as Facebook or with the WordPress plugin, such as BbPress. It is possible to divide subjects into modules or lessons, or base them off specific characteristics of students (like age of their students, their location, or the instruments they're learning). They give them the opportunity to discuss topics with one another, brainstorm ideas, ask clarifying questions, or even build friendships that encourage learners to learn.

7. Integrate gamification

Gamification applies the principles of games -- such as points scoring and competition- to other mediums such as online education. It is an excellent place to get creative! Here are some ideas:

• Incorporate quizzes, challenges and other activities into your lessons
• Award points based on activities like completing work and scoring high on tests, etc. The award will include a prize for the student who earns the highest number of points.
• Recognize students who are active in your forum by awarding them badges
• Include a progress bar for your course in order to encourage students to complete a module
• Allow students to share their grades via social media

Gamification can make learning engaging and stimulates healthy competition. This makes your lessons more interesting for students.

8. Learn what your customers are seeking.

The absolute most effective way to make your courses enjoyable for students is to provide the information they're seeking. If you can answer their questions and aid them in reaching their objectives, they'll be more likely to finish your course, leave an outstanding review, and even recommend it to relatives and friends.

You can then adjust your program's contents and structure according to the students' expectations.

All it is about your students

In the end, when it comes to it, your students online are the core of what you produce. If you take their requirements in mind while crafting your course content and arranging your courses it will help you keep them interested, engaged and committed to buying more.

Want more tips? Take a look at this article written by Sensei LMS on designing effective online courses.