How to Lose an Online Student: Assume Students Are on Track
In general, students don’t plan well. Most have never taken an online course, and they’re all coming into your course with different levels of requisite knowledge. So how you kick off your course will set the tone for a student’s level of engagement — and if expectations for support and guidance are unclear from day one, you’re starting in the hole.
Do This Instead: Set Expectations & Provide Ongoing Guidance
Providing clear expectations and guidance for how and when to complete course activities is important. Consider the following tactics to set the stage for student success in your course:
- Remind students how and where to find course material, and explain how that material aligns with the objectives of the course.
- Keep due dates for important assignments top of students’ minds and make sure a syllabus and online rubric tied to the course’s learning outcomes are highly visible.
- Anticipate potential questions from students and prepare a quick FAQ resource— especially helpful for students new to taking online classes.
- Use discussion and collaboration tools to share ongoing feedback with students so they have an opportunity to improve for the next lesson.
As an added bonus, you can also leverage assessment analytics in those tools, which help you identify students who may be falling behind in certain areas — giving you the opportunity to provide an extra layer of guidance that gets them back on track.
How to Lose an Online Student: Double Down on the Text
A surefire way to scare students away is to keep course materials and assignments heavy on the text. Students are digital natives and accustomed to communicating and learning through a variety of media, especially video. When you consider that 80% of people use YouTube and video to learn something new or improve skills that will help them prepare for the future, it’s a no-brainer that incorporating multimedia will better engage students.
Do This Instead: Leverage Multimedia for Content Delivery
Consider employing a variety of multimedia, including video, to deliver your course content. Journal articles, podcasts, case studies, video, and interactive learning objects are just some of the ways you can deliver concepts to students. Share perspective through recorded video microlectures to synthesize key concepts and provide friendly video reminders around expectations. When you offer instructional content and resources in a variety of ways, you’re going to be able to reach a broader set of students whose abilities and learning styles all vary.
Similarly, encourage students to submit assignments using a variety of multimedia options, from pictures and video to written text and audio. Have students introduce themselves through pictures or video. Offering students a choice in how they complete assignments but still fits within your parameters gives students a broader range of expression, entices them to participate in the ways that work best for them, and as an added bonus, supports greater academic integrity.
How to Lose an Online Student: Ignore the Need for Connection
Learning online can be lonely. In a 2017 survey of 48,000 college students, 64 percent said they had felt “very lonely” in the previous 12 months — putting them at high risk for severe depression — according to the American College Health Association. That stat is likely even higher for online students.
According to Albert Bandura’s social learning theory, people learn best by observing and interacting with others. They acquire new knowledge and skills by watching others’ behaviors and attitudes, and related outcomes. So without the built-in social interactions of the physical F2F classroom, online learning can make students feel isolated — leading to decreased motivation and a potential decline in mental health and academic performance.
Do This Instead: Create Opportunities for Collaboration
Work to enable connection, collaboration, and community. While some argue that facilitating student collaboration online is challenging, consider that when students interact with their peers on work, their level of engagement rises and motivation improves — a key indicator of student success and achievement. With more engaged students, you’ll see participation increase, which is the fuel for creating community in your online course.
Like many aspects of teaching, helping students develop a sense of belonging and community can impact learning in both face-to-face and online courses, but attending to these dimensions online takes intentional planning. For instructor-to-student communication, instructors should take steps to connect with their students via digital channels, including email, chat, online discussions, or virtual office hours, in order to compensate for the loss of natural face-to-face cues and communication. This starts to build a sense of belonging for each student in your course.
When students feel they belong to a class community, they are more likely to be motivated to complete class work, feel safe enough to ask questions or for more help, and be open to feedback that can help them improve. You can:
- Engage students in a course discussion about particular topics as part of the class curriculum to help them not only improve their critical thinking skills but also encourage them to engage with others in the class in a meaningful way. Establish this conversation as a forum to connect with each without the pressure of a graded assignment.
- Create a Q&A board for the class so students can post questions and crowdsource responses.
- Host virtual office hours to make yourself available to students, especially important when you don’t see them face-to-face throughout the week. Virtual office hours can be as simple as web conferencing with an individual or small group of students. Or it could involve adding a chat for those students, who just want to have a brief connection.
- Send students off into their own small-group discussions to share reflections on particular assignments; have them compare and contrast ideas.
- Incorporate students’ experiences and expertise. Students come to your course with a wide range of knowledge and experiences, and have insights to share. For example, invite students, independently or in small groups, to solve organic chemistry problems in front of their peers (virtually) and explain their solutions. Involving students as teachers heightens interdependence, mutual respect and engagement — all of which are valuable in community building.
- Give students space to connect virtually via group projects and optional synchronous meetings to keep them engaged.
How to Engage Your Online Students
Generally speaking, learning improves when students are inquisitive, interested, or inspired, and learning tends to suffer when students are bored, dispassionate, or disaffected. These strategies are intended to help you engage students from the start, but also work to get students back in the game — before you lose them for good.
When you add in factors like trying to fit in schoolwork amid an array of competing priorities, online students become more prone to disengagement. But with these strategies in your toolkit, you’ll be able to build an online course that activates students’ excitement for learning, enables connection and community, and, ultimately, mirrors the authenticity of a traditional classroom experience — all of which work to keep your students motivated and more engaged.
If you’re interested in learning how Harmonize can power engaging online courses, let’s connect.
