Whether it’s juggling multiple responsibilities, difficulty managing time, the lack of face-time with instructors, or the sense of isolation online learners may experience, students who participate in online education tend to struggle more than those in face-to-face courses. Unsurprisingly, online courses often have a 10-20 percent lower retention rate than traditional courses. As institutions continue to expand their online course offerings, there’s an opportunity to develop more dynamic and engaging online learning environments. With these six student engagement strategies, you’ll be able to employ an effective mix of synchronous and asynchronous activities that have proven to boost student engagement and drive better retention.
Online Student Engagement Strategy 1: Amp Up Communication
Because instruction is delivered asynchronously, and material can be accessed by students at any time, online courses are typically built with one-way, transactional communication in mind. While this creates convenience and flexibility for online learners, it also has the potential to create an isolating experience for students.
Of all the student engagement strategies, this one is fairly obvious. Use channels that make students feel seen and heard. That sense of isolation students experience when not attending in-person classes can be mitigated if instructors have avenues for communication. Through one-on-one communication with the instructor or other students, small-group or break-out discussions, polls, chats or Q&A, it’s important for instructors to actively engage with students in the course. It might be as simple as reacting and responding to students’ posts or tagging particular students for inputs.
You can also use polls and Q&A, to ask students where more focus is needed and what else you can do to create a positive learning environment.
Let’s face it. No one likes feeling like they’re posting into an internet abyss, and this is one way to help students feel connected — like there’s someone on the receiving end of their posts or messages.
See How…Don’t take our word for it! Using this tip for engaging students online helped Meridian Community College experience a 4x increase in student participation and a 56% increase in student engagement.
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Online Student Engagement Strategy 2: Leverage ChatGPT to Create Engaging Course Discussions
Research indicates that participation in discussion forums is related to better course outcomes in both traditional and online courses. That’s great news, but the problem is that most online discussions rely on the LMS as a standard way for students to interact in discussions. These forums are typically text-based and can be challenging to extract deep engagement from students. They are also difficult for instructors to track and assess student participation.
That said, in a recent pilot study conducted by WGU Labs, the College Innovation Network (CIN) found strong promise for increased course engagement and improved learning outcomes at Piedmont Community College, when different online discussion tools were used both in the classroom and asynchronously. These tools allowed instructors to pull on a broader set of discussion techniques to increase student participation.
Now It’s Time to Scale Effective Course Discussions
ChatGPT is an innovative and capable tool that performs reasonably well across a wide variety of tasks and academic subjects. So instead of running from it, we thought about how to leverage it to the instructor’s advantage. To get the most out of ChatGPT as an online course instructor, you just need to provide clear and specific instructions and break down complex queries. We know that’s no easy feat. To understand the plumbing behind what makes a good prompt so you can write the instructions for ChatGPT to perform well is tough. That’s why we coached it on Blooms Taxonomy and more than 60 different approaches to online discussions, so you get a solid starting point and variation in approaches on every run.
And as a result, you’ll find yourself with better, more effective course discussion prompts, more quickly than ever. Imagine if all you had to do was click a few buttons and suddenly you have more sound pedagogy in ALL of your discussions? What if students were guided to discuss topics with an interaction strategy that is relevant to their course level — how would that impact engagement?
That was our goal. Harmonize has leveraged its knowledge of quality online education pedagogy to coach ChatGPT to build better course discussion and assignment prompts, so that educators and instructional designers can boost student engagement with every single discussion.
As more and more courses move online, instructional designers are being stretched thin. To come up with multiple new prompts for every course and each instructor would be impossible — or at least time consuming. With ChatGPT in Harmonize, you don’t have to.
Focus on the higher level needs of the courses and use ChatGPT in Harmonize to fill in the work of generating prompts for you — at scale across multiple lessons, courses, and instructors. Here’s an example of how you can build better discussion prompts faster and at scale.
The original course discussion prompt
Are design patterns important in application development?
The problem with this prompt…it’s easily Google-able and maybe just a wee bit boring?
The revised prompt as written by ChatGPT & coached by Harmonize
We took that prompt and then coached the artificial intelligence on a couple areas, including:
- Bloom Taxonomy Level = Analyzing
- And then choosing Strategy = Debate
Here’s what our ChatGPT teaching assistant came up with:
Welcome to the online discussion for our course on software design patterns! In this activity, we will be engaging in a debate regarding the importance of design patterns in application development. Design patterns are widely recognized as reusable solutions to common problems that occur during software design and development. They provide a structured approach to designing software systems and can significantly impact the quality, maintainability, and scalability of applications.
Now, let’s delve into the debate. In this discussion, I want you to explore both sides of the argument and present persuasive arguments to support your viewpoint. Consider the following statement: “Design patterns are essential in application development.”
One group will take the stance that design patterns are indeed crucial in application development. You should analyze the components and structure of design patterns, examine their relationship to application development, and provide evidence to support your position. What benefits do design patterns bring to the table? How do they contribute to code reusability, modularity, and extensibility? Present your arguments in a clear and organized manner.
On the other hand, another group will argue against the statement, suggesting that design patterns may not be as important as they are often portrayed. You should analyze and question the validity of design patterns, probe their potential drawbacks or limitations, and explore alternative approaches to solving common problems in software design. Present counter arguments based on research and critical examination.
Remember, each student is required to make at least one primary post, presenting their initial argument, and respond to at least two of their peers’ posts. Engage in a constructive dialogue, challenge each other’s ideas, and provide well-reasoned responses. This activity aims to develop your critical thinking skills, research abilities, and the capacity to construct persuasive arguments.
I expect you to delve deep into the topic, examine different design patterns, evaluate the evidence, and draw informed conclusions. Be sure to categorize and differentiate the various design patterns, dissect their purpose and application, and identify patterns or trends in their usage. Remember to respect each other’s viewpoints and maintain a positive and professional tone throughout the discussion. Good luck, and let the debate begin! |
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In addition to being more inclusive of how students learn, other tips for engaging students online include using student-facilitated discussions to encourage interactivity in online courses. This technique encourages more interactions and prepares students to be knowledge-producers and actively engages them in the learning process through exploratory discussion with their peers.
Studies even show that peer-led discussions enhance community and entice other students to participate, while also being beneficial for learning outcomes — generating innovative ideas, motivating students, and providing a risk-free and relaxed atmosphere for discussion. It empowers students to take ownership of online discussion assignments while developing facilitation and discussion skills, and serves to redefine the instructor’s role from daily discussion manager to facilitation coach.
Online Student Engagement Strategy 3: Easily Facilitate Online Collaboration
In an online learning environment, it can be challenging to facilitate group or student-to-student collaboration without the right kinds of tools. Yet, the benefits of doing so far outweigh the challenges.
During collaboration, students receive attention from their peers, which has shown to increase a student’s level of engagement and participation in the learning process. In fact, in a meta-analysis of 1,000+ empirical studies, peer-assisted methods outperformed traditional methods, with small-group collaboration increasing students’ ability to transfer their learning to new contexts. To implement this student engagement strategy, here are some effective ways to guide students in collaborating with one another online.
Peer Reviews, Small Groups & Milestones
Southern Arkansas University Tech, which experienced an 80 percent improvement in online student participation, uses the learner-centered strategy of peer reviews, and couples it with opportunities for students to provide feedback and also work 1-on-1 and in small breakout groups with each other through virtual chat portals.
See How…For example, in an online speech course, students are required to write a narrative speech and submit it for peer critique. Through prompts set by milestones or multiple due dates, students provide at least three posted comments on a certain number of students’ speeches. As an ongoing activity, students strengthen their evaluative skills, practice articulating constructive feedback, and become receptive to feedback.
“The feedback students were providing was at least 10 times better, and the number of comments per speech more than doubled when set milestones for them. We also found that anonymous posts elicited more constructive feedback, which is helping our students better iterate their work before final submissions and grades,” said SAU Tech instructional designer Traci Rushing.
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This sets clear expectations for students and guides them through collaborative learning activities — keeping them on track and engaged with one another, while simultaneously working to create a stronger sense of community as they work together.
Students at SAU Tech also participate in small-group collaboration projects. That collaboration is powered through chat portals. The key here is familiarity.
“It looks and feels like text messaging — a familiar medium of communication for students. However, rather than taking the students out of the course to mobile texting, we use tools that are connected to the course in order to keep students engaged with the relevant material.”
With the right tools, instructors can more easily incorporate a wider range of collaborative activities, including facilitating discussions by section or groups, breaking students out into groups by topic, and supporting student-led discussions. This approach encourages more student-to-student communication and continues to honor the asynchronous communication needs of most online learners.
Milestones or multiple due dates in Harmonize set expectations and guide students through a series of interactions.
Online Student Engagement Strategy 4: Meet Students Where They Are
This leads us to a critical component of improving student engagement in online learning — how to create a strong sense of connection and community. The key is to keep it social. In fact, students increasingly want their instructors to incorporate and use social media as a part of their learning — not surprising when you consider today’s college-age student spends about three to four hours each day on social media. And this generation engages best with bite-sized pieces of information, preferably through video as the medium of choice.
So any technology an institution employs to facilitate online courses should foster social connection and be easy to use. Tools with a user experience that mimic familiar life experiences have the highest usability — think features like tagging, multimedia, notifications, and grid-like social media interfaces. If a student or instructor logs in and can connect the screen they’re viewing to something they are familiar with in their personal lives, they are likely to explore it more deeply.
Tools that provide a social media-like experience, with content creation, sharing, and reaction capabilities — make it both recognizable and easy to use, which lead to increased student participation and engagement.
See How…Using authentic collaboration, Eastern Florida State College Online is one institution that takes advantage of this approach to motivate students.
“Like social media, we use instructor-student tagging in our discussions. The mention lets a student know I’m there and that I will respond with feedback. It’s a way to get students’ attention and demonstrate that their contributions are valued. Our students feel like someone’s really there for them,” notes Andrew Lieb, Collegewide Chair at EFSC.
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Brown University also experienced increased student participation by incorporating social elements. James Foley, Director for Digital Learning & Design, says, “We elevated our course discussion experiences for students. With features that keep students engaged, we used a tool that made it flexible for all users and had the kind of built-in social engagement that increases student participation.”
Based on the way students interact today, a social-based approach can help students in an online course feel better connected to each other even if they’ve never met. This student engagement strategy creates a sense of community that doesn’t rely on a physical space, and it fosters a level of comfort that encourages today’s students — many of whom are already digital natives — to engage with one another and instructors online.
Online Student Engagement Strategy 5: Use Student Engagement Insights
Of all the student engagement strategies, this one has a huge impact! Just imagine what it could look like if you were able to implement all of these tips right from one application. When you have a single suite of tools that integrate with your LMS and allow you to build more engaging online courses, you’ll end up having something so much more powerful: the right kind of information.
To increase student engagement online, it’s important to be able to track that engagement. Traditionally, it’s been hard to know which students are engaged and which are not. And sometimes, by the time an instructor gets a good sense, that student has dropped off entirely. That doesn’t have to be the case anymore.
With analytics built into your online discussion, communication, and collaboration tools, you’re able to quickly understand how students are progressing toward goals. You can see who, how, and when students are participating in courses. You can see which students need more attention and which topics worked best. Serving as an early-warning system, these kinds of student engagement insights can help instructors trigger customized outreach to specific students — promptly and proactively re-engaging them in discussion and working to get them back on track. It’s an easy but effective way to help instructors improve engagement and retention in their courses.
See How…With an easy-to-read dashboard, instructors at Southside Virginia Community College had new visibility into how students were progressing toward goals: which students were actively participating and which students were less active or had dropped off in engagement. From these insights, instructors triggered email and chat outreach to specific students who were struggling.
Now with a way to quantify student-to-student, student-to-instructor, and student-to-content engagement over time, Southside Virginia Community College can proactively respond to current RSI guidelines and demonstrate the quality of their courses as standards continue to evolve.
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Harmonize's Engagement Insights serves as an early-warning system, so instructors can trigger customized outreach to potentially struggling students.
When you foster a social learning environment where students are seen and heard and provide easy ways to interact with their instructor and peers, you’ll see student engagement soar. And having access to the right tools to power these activities is just as important as any other engagement strategy.
To do all of this, some institutions rely on a variety of disconnected tools — chat tools, video and polling tools, discussion forums, and other collaboration tools — that aren’t fully integrated with the LMS, creating additional barriers for instructors and making it more difficult to create a cohesive learning experience for students.
Harmonize is a suite of easy-to-use discussion and collaboration tools that integrate seamlessly with your LMS to facilitate a more engaging, socially connected online learning experience. It’s everything an instructor needs to increase student engagement online and promote inclusive learning, while saving time and eliminating manual tasks.
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