Maintaining student participation and focus is challenging enough before you factor in remote and asynchronous learning. It’s not a stretch to say that many online students have low levels of engagement. Research suggests that online student satisfaction is correlated with high levels of engagement as well. Though we’ve previously written about encouraging and increasing student engagement generally, this article will focus on how to reach online students—specifically, on five simple ways to boost online students’ engagement and improve their learning experience.
5 Simple Ways to Boost Online Students' Engagement
1. Communicate with Your Students: Clearly and in a Timely Manner
It’s fair to say that students will never complete an activity of which they are unaware. Creating clear asynchronous communication through learning pathways, well-written textbooks, and a clean course structure is paramount for student success and engagement. Make asynchronous communication simple and straightforward, with sufficient detail to guide students from start to finish.
However good your asynchronous communication may be, it will not be sufficient to exempt you from live communication with your students. Reach out to disengaged students. It may mean everything to a struggling student to hear from you! Respond promptly to emails, and demonstrate that you are available to help your students participate. For more guidance, please see our article on giving students feedback.
2. Utilize a Variety of Activities
There is no lack of online activities students can participate in. Don’t be satisfied with a few unlisted videos and multiple-choice quizzes. Branch out into activities that involve human interaction or incorporate new technology, like virtual labs or MyEducator’s new AI Teacher Assistant tool. As you offer a variety of activities, you can engage students from non-traditional situations as well.
See our article, “Five (Plus One) Classroom Examples of Experiential Learning,” for more ideas.
3. Promote Peer-to-Peer Learning
Learning and change are best promoted when learners have a coach (an instructor) and a peer support network. If you want to engage your students, help them engage each other through peer learning promotion. Promoting peer interaction as a teacher can mean more than obligatory discussion boards. If you’re looking for group work options, you can promote practical simulation assignments, group projects, and community engagement activities to ensure that your students take class material beyond their laptop screens.
4. Incorporate Feedback You Receive
Being able to enjoy all the feedback you receive is a rare attribute, but incorporating helpful feedback doesn’t have to be. If you don’t currently have systems to receive feedback from students, peers, and supervisors, set them up! If you do have those systems, look for repeated criticisms and pieces of praise you can focus on. For more information about why and how to establish a culture of feedback in your classroom, please see our article “Instructor and Course Evaluations: Creating a Culture of Feedback and Growth.”
5. Employ the Best Digital Materials Available
Your courses deserve the best. At MyEducator, we provide the best materials and support. We educate the world with high-quality learning materials that are simple to use and affordable while providing excellent service for instructors, students, and authors. If you are looking to write a textbook for an upcoming course, here’s a peek behind the curtain to understand the MyEducator resource development process. MyEducator will also adapt resources from its current catalog to better fit the needs of your classroom and learning objectives.
Conclusion
Keeping track of the students in an online course can seem overwhelming. But you can do it! Remember the five simple ways to boost online students’ engagement: communicate clearly and in a timely manner, vary course activities, promote peer learning, incorporate feedback, and employ the best digital textbooks. As you do so, you’ll be creating memorable online experiences in no time!
Kristiana, I. F., Prihatsanti , U., Simanjuntak, E., & Widayanti, C. G. (2023). Online Student Engagement: The Overview of HE in Indonesia. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 24(3), 34–53. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v24i3.7125
Baloran, E. T., Hernan, J. T., & Taoy, J.S. (October 2021). Course Satisfaction and Student Engagement in Online Learning Amid COVID-19 Pandemic: A Structural Equation Model. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education (TOJDE), 22(4), 1–12.
https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/2002203
