Engaging Students in online learning

Introduction

Online learning has faced many changes and challenges over the last few years. All over the world, our students, kindergarten aged all the way to post graduate level, were forced to learn in either a fully online platform, or a hybrid learning environment. The learning settings, engagement, and motivation drastically changed for our learners. Recent studies have shown that students continue to face risk of poor academic results in online environments (Czerkawski & Lyman, 2016). Massive online open courses (MOOCs) have hit the educational classrooms as a versatile option that offers a culturally diverse learning environment. MOOCs are web-based online courses offered for learners around the world regardless of age, race, social, or educational status. This post will reflect on the research gathered around learner engagement and motivation in the online learning environment.

KEEPING STUDENTS ENGAGED IN VIRTUAL SETTINGS

TIP #1 - KEEP IT SIMPLE

TIP #2 - MAKE YOUR VIRTUAL SPACE CLEAN AND COMFY

TIP #3 - SET NORMS AND CLEAR EXPECTATIONS

TIP #4 - FOSTER BELONGING/SENSE OF COMMUNITY

TIP #5 - BE PRESENT - FOSTER INDEPENDENCE

TIP #6 - PLAN FOR INTERACTIVITY - ENCOURAGE COLLABORATION

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Curiosity

Broadly speaking, curiosity is aroused by uncertainty or a desire to close a perceived gap in one’s knowledge (Reiser & Dempsey, 2018). I believe that curiosity for learning is something that learners vacillate through depending on the content and circumstances of their lives. Initially, e-learning (electronic learning), was considered to be a new component of traditional education where teachers and learners benefitted from online resources to enhance formal education; however, over time, it has replaced the functions of traditional face-to-face education through distance learning programs (Watson, 2008). Online learning has allowed our students and our subject matter to have a vast amount of flexibility in what and how our students are learning peaking with curiosity. Establishing and maintaining academic engagement in the online environment can be challenging (Erarslan & Seker, 2021). When learners are curious about the content, their level of engagement and motivation to learn increases. In curiosity, learners explore, question and wonder about their subjects and surroundings. Since most recent educational tools are online, how are educators encouraging learners to explore, question and wonder through the electronic media?

Engagement

Learner engagement comes in many different forms. We learn through social, physical, cultural, behavioral, emotional and cognitive methods. Online educational tools, such as videos, discussion forums, and other web-based activities, have been used to blend these methods and produce curriculum that is actively engaging to our learners. The learner, the content and the instructor all work together to produce an environment that engages the desired learning outcomes (images here show these relationships) and how all connections, where the learner, the content, the instructor and the interface, work together to foster engagement. Moore identified three types of interaction inherent in effective online environments: learner to learner, learner to the content and learner to instructor, where he found that interactions with peers, instructors and content help online learners become active and more engaged with their courses (1993). Engagement is the key to success, its where learners actively pursue course related activities, being a sign of learning in action (Granger & Eastmond, 2005). Cundell and Sheepy share in their findings, that the design of online activities should prioritize the learner-learner interaction in ways that promote thinking at the highest levels of Bloom’s taxonomy through social, collaborative, cognitive and behavioral engagement (Cundell & Sheepy, 2018).

Is the content meaningful?

If the curriculum is created with meaningful challenges and relevance to learners, will the instruction be meaningful in ways to engage our students? Research findings indicate the quality of the e-learning needs to be maintained based on empirical and objective evaluations of how much the instructional designs available pertain to educational approaches; of the quality of the learning materials, and of interactional opportunities, and of how satisfactory the e-learning engagement levels of learners are (Erarslan & Seker, 2021). From a learners perspective, the quality and the outcomes of e-learning experiences will more likely depend on the learner-related features such as learning styles, skills and strategies exerted during the learning process (Erarslan & Seker, 2021). As instructors and content designers, it seems to boil down to a few key standards for meaningful online content: student participation, motivation and student success (Czerkawski & Lyman, 2016). All of these factors are geared toward building effective course content that learners can connect with on some level that makes the learning meaningful for them. As shown in the diagram below, the instructional needs, the instructional objectives, the learning environments and the summative assessment all help build a framework for effective engagement (Czerkawski & Lyman, 2016). Feedback is a great tool for communication between the learner and the instructor. Feedback takes on many different roles with this interaction, it can include task feedback, processes feedback, self-regulation feedback, superficial feedback, and mediated feedback (Czerkawski & Lyman, 2018).

Conclusion

Creating engaging online content for our courses has proven to be a challenge. The effectiveness of the lessons and the engagement level have drastically changed over the last few years. With the rise of social media, distractors and the remote work/study environments, many students experience challenges when it comes to focusing on their studies in order to maintain good levels of curiosity and engagement with the concepts. Studies have shown that when students were required to interact with instructors, the content of the course, and their peers, there were much higher levels of engagement. Learners working collaboratively with the content and their instructors fostered a stronger sense of community, learning communities, knowledge-building communities and learning participation (Czerkawski & Lyman, 2016).

References

Cundell, A., & Sheepy, E. (2018) Student Perceptions of the Most Effective and Engaging Online Learning Activities in a Blended Graduate Seminar. Online Learning, 22(3), 87-102.

Czerkawski, B., & Lyman, E. (2016). An Instructional Design Framework for Fostering Student Engagement in Online Learning Environments. Tech Trends, 60:532-539.

Erarslan, A., & Şeker, M. (2021). Investigating e-learning motivational strategies of higher education learners against online distractors. Online Learning, 25(2), 262-279.

Granger, D., & Eastmon, D. (2005). Engaging the Online Learner: Activities and Resources for Creative Instruction. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 6(3), 271-174.

Moore, M. J. (1993). Three types of interaction. In K. Harry, M. John, & D. Keegan (Eds.), Distance education theory (pp. 19–24). New York: Routledge.

Reiser, R., & Dempsey, J. (2018). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and

Technology (4th ed.). Pearson.

Watson, J. (2008). Blended Learning: The Convergence of Online and Face-to-Face Education. Promising Practices in Online Learning. North American Council for Online Learning (NACOL).

YouTube: Keeping Students Engaged in Digital Learning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LybF2YlWn4

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Tracey Lindsey, June 2023