How can you ensure that students are engaged with Online Courses

Online courses are incredibly versatile and could be an effective tool for a variety of businesses. Bloggers can offer courses about cooking, organization, crafting, or interior design. An accounting firm could offer educational programs about budgeting or taxation. A music shop online might offer virtual guitar lessons in addition to their sheet music and supplies.

But no matter the type of course you offer the importance of student participation is paramount. Students who are interested and invested complete the courses, register to take more, write good reviews, and recommend your business to their friends.

Let's review some practical ways to make your lessons 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 attention spans, however the majority believe that an adult's attention span falls somewhere about 20 minutes.

You may have enough high-quality engaging content that you can create an entire curriculum- that's great! But your students may not be able to fully engage for that long at a duration.

Another way to tackle this issue is to break your content into bite-sized pieces using categories and sub-categories. For example, if you're selling a course on the first steps to solids in babies, you might divide it into groups like:

• Introduction to Solids
• How do you know when to begin eating solid food?
• Signals of the readiness
• Gear and equipment that you need
• First feeding schedule
• Best first foods
• How to cut and prep
• Example recipes
• Introducing allergens
• Common food allergens
• Warning signs to watch for
• Tips for serving allergens

Every grouping could contain sections of text, pictures, videos, and printable resources. Students are able to complete them according to their own schedulesregardless of whether they wish to work on one piece at a time or sit down and go through all of them at one time.

Sensei LMS uses these categories to mean Courses, Modules, and Lessons. The Courses can be divided into Modules, then divide each Module into a number of lessons.

It makes navigation extremely simple for students and allows them to quickly see what's coming up in the course.

2. Make attractive images

Graphics can be an incredibly 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 a variety of methods to incorporate images into your courses. If you're presenting numerical data and you want to include charts or a graph that reflects that information. If you're trying to measure the difference between two different ingredients, you should include photos of them in a side-by-side comparison. If you're talking about a particular type of houseplant, add photos.

In creating graphics, or selecting images, remember some basic guidelines:

• Make sure you choose high-quality photos. Although you do not have to hire a professional photographer, be sure the photos you purchase or shoot look professional. The subject should always be clear -No blurry photos! -- and the lighting should make the image easily digestible.
• Consider white space. White space refers to the blank space surrounding the subject of the graph. If you've got an inscription or pie chart, you'll need to create enough empty space around it for it to breathe. It helps the viewer better absorb the contents of your graphics and understand its meaning.
• Include photos of people, when appropriate. Human beings are naturally drawn to facial expressions, and we naturally turn our attention toward people. The addition of photos that feature a friendly face can help people connect with them and the topic of your choice.
• Do not get overly complicated. Beware of adding a lot of graphics that compete with each other and the content that is educational in your classes. Be aware that the images you use will be used to attract the attention of your viewers, to make it more interesting, and assist in the learning process. Sometimes, simple is the most effective strategy.

3. Attract a range of styles of learning

Everyone learns differently. Actually, there's a variety of different learning styles which is why if you want to engage as many learners as you can, try to attract them all whenever you can. Here are the four most commonly used, and how to meet the requirements of every type of student:

• Read/write Students learn most effectively through words. Provide written directions and other details for them within the pages of the course or as PDFs that are downloadable.
• Visual Images, graphics as well as videos work for this type of student. In fact, in the study of one, students remember 95 percent of the message while watching a film as opposed to only 10% when reading the information. Videos can be an incredibly powerful way of educating users online.
• Auditory Types of learners prefer to glean information through listening and speaking. Therefore, you could provide videos of yourself explaining the concepts students will be able to take in. You could also provide an opportunity to listen to podcasts as part of your class, have a weekly Zoom conference that allows for an individual discussion, or incorporate songs into your teachings.
• Kinesthetic: These students are hands-on learners who benefit from physical learning things by themselves. Even though this can be challenging to incorporate into online learning, let your imagination run wild! Give students sewing patterns to try out, give them the list of pictures they need to take for the entire week, or challenge students with designing an identity for themselves.

If you are selling on-line cooking courses. If you were to appeal to the four different learning styles within one class You could have multiple paragraphs on the underlying principles for making bread rise. You could include an infographic detailing the scientific process involved, and include an instructional video that shows you explaining and discussing the principles aloud and give students the task of making their own bread loaf.

4. Make sure you have a convincing narration

When you're filming videos to teach your students An effective narration can make a world of impact. If you're an avid reader of audiobooks, then you know this idea. The monotonous, uninteresting voiceover could send listeners to sleep. However, someone that is engaging and entertaining can have the opposite effect.

The narration you use conveys the mood of your class. Are your topics entertaining and quirky? Sincere and sensitive? Helpful and relatable? Your videos must reflect that.

Take the time to get the speed of your narration right and also. It can be easy to speed through your voiceovers, which can create a challenge for students to keep up. Review your recorded recordings and, if your voice is too fast, start over.

Do not try to sound like the voiceover talent of your choice. You're never going be able to impersonate Morgan Freeman no matter how hard you try and that's not what students are looking for. Simply be you!

If you're not a good voiceover artist then that's fine. There are great professional voiceover talents available to hire that don't cost an arm and a leg.

5. Incorporate polls, quizzes and other questions.

Quizzes and polls can be a great way to see the amount your students are absorbing and learning about, and engage them at the highest quality. They can also help break up your content with an activity that is fun and unique.

The best way to start every section with a survey. You can ask questions that will help you instruct students or invite them to talk about something enjoyable about themselves. What are they hoping to take away from your program? What's their biggest accounting pain issue? What's their favorite song? How many cakes have they prepared?

Then, mix in questions throughout your class. With Sensei LMS, quizzes are tied to the lessons. Therefore, you can make questions based on the lesson which a student has just finished. Making questions from different kinds -- multiple choice, True/False Fill in the blank, short answer, and so on. -- can also keep things interesting.

There is the option of setting question types such as multiple choice, false/true for auto-grading as well as manually mark open-ended question your self. This gives you the opportunity to find areas of improvement in your classes, as well as help any student who might need a little assistance.

6. Build an community

One of the most significant differences between online and physical learning spaces is the amount of community that is involved. Online students aren't able to sit next to other people taking the same course, discussing topics with them as well as asking questions to the crowd.

It is possible to create an identical setting by establishing an online community through a social media site such as Facebook or by using the WordPress plugin such as bbPress. It is possible to divide subjects up by module or lesson or based on specific characteristics of students (like age of the children, location, or instruments they're studying). These communities give students an opportunity to talk about issues with their peers to brainstorm ideas, pose clarifying questions, or even establish friendships to encourage them to keep learning.

7. Integrate gamification

Gamification applies principles from gaming -- for example, point scoring and competition -and other forms of communication such as online education. It is an excellent location to experiment with your ideas! Here are some ideas:

• Incorporate quizzes, challenges and other activities into your lesson plans
• Points awarded based on the performance of students like completing work, scoring well on quizzes or tests, etc. The award will include a prize for the student who earns the highest number of points.
• Encourage students to participate in your forums by awarding them badges
• Add an progression bar in your classes to motivate students to finish an entire course
• Allow students to post their results via social media

The incorporation of gamification into learning makes it more enjoyable and promotes healthy competition. This makes your courses more engaging for your students.

8. Know what your target audience is searching for.

The best way to make your courses interesting for students is to provide what they're looking for. If you answer their questions and aid them in reaching their goals, they're likely to complete the course, write a good review, and then recommend it to relatives and friends.

After that, you can adjust the curriculum and course's content as necessary to meet your students' needs.

Your students are the most important thing.

When it comes down to it, your online learners are the core of what you produce. If you take the needs of your students in mind when crafting your course content and structuring your class, you'll be able to keep them engaged, interested and purchasing more.

Want more tips? Check out this article from Sensei LMS on making online courses that are effective..