How can you ensure that students are engaged In Your Online Courses

Online courses are incredibly versatile and could be an effective tool for a variety of business. A blogger could sell courses about cooking, organization craft, interior design. A accounting company could provide classes on budgeting and taxes. Online music stores might sell guitar-related classes online in addition to their sheets of music and other instruments.

No matter what kind of program you are offering it is essential that students are engaged. Interested, invested learners complete your classes, enroll to take more, write positive reviews and refer your company to their peers.

So let's take a review some practical ways you can make your courses more enjoyable.

1. Break your courses into digestible pieces

Attention spans for us aren't that long. Research has reported varying amounts of attention spans, however the majority agree that the adult attention span falls somewhere around 20 minutes.

It's possible that you have high-quality, interesting content to create an entire curriculum- that's great! However, your students might not be able to fully engage for that long at one period of.

One great way to handle this issue is to break the courses down into smaller chunks using sub-categories and categories. As an example, if you're selling a course on starting solids for babies You could break it down into categories for example:

• The introduction to solids
• How do you know when to begin eating solid food?
• Signals of preparedness
• Equipment and gear that is required
• First feeding schedule
• Best first foods
• How to cut and prepare
• Recipes for example
• Introducing allergens
• Common food allergens
• Watch out for warning signs
• Tips for serving food that is a source of allergens

The groups could include paragraphs of text, images video, or other materials. Students are able to complete them at their own pace -regardless of whether they wish to work on one piece at a time or just sit and work through them all in one go.

Sensei LMS uses these categories to mean Courses, Modules, and Lessons. It is possible to divide each Course into Modules and split each Module into a number of lessons.

It makes navigation super simple for students, and allows them to quickly know what's happening in the course.

2. Design attractive graphics

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 lots of ways to incorporate images into your teaching. If you're listing numerical data, add a chart or graph that reflects that information. If you're comparing the difference between two ingredients, include photos of them in a side-by-side comparison. If you're discussing a specific kind of houseplant, include images.

If you are creating graphics or selecting images, remember the following basic rules:

• Choose high-quality pictures. While you don't necessarily need to employ an experienced photographer, you should make sure the photos you purchase or create are professional. The subject should be crystal clearand no blurry images! And the lighting should make the image simple to digest.
• Think of empty white spaces. White space refers to the blank area around the contents of the graph. If you've got text lines or a pie charts, it is important to leave enough space for it to breathe. It helps the viewer better absorb the information contained in your graph and get the meaning behind it.
• Use photos of individuals, when appropriate. Humans are wired to respond to facial expressions, and our attention naturally shifts toward them. By adding photos with a friendly face can aid in connecting people to you and your subject matter.
• Do not get overly complicated. Beware of adding a lot of images that are competing with one another and with the content that is educational in your lessons. Keep in mind that your graphics will be used to attract the attention of your viewers, to make it more enjoyable, and help in the learning process. Sometimes, simple is the most effective strategy.

3. Affect a wide range types of learners

Every person learns in a different way. Actually, there's many methods of learning which is why if you are looking to reach as many pupils as you possibly can, then you'll be able to appeal to them all when you can. Here are the four most common, and ways to satisfy the demands of each type of learner:

• Read/write The students who learn this format are most effective at learning through language. Provide written directions and other details for them in the course's pages or as PDFs that are downloadable.
• Visual: Graphics, images, and videos are perfect for this type of student. Indeed, according to an experiment, people remember 95% of a message after watching a video in comparison to only 10% of the text. Video can be a efficient method to educate online.
• Auditory The types of learners are more likely to absorb information through listening and speaking. So you might have videos that explain ideas that your students could take in. Or you could offer access to a podcast in your classes, have a weekly Zoom meeting that allows discussions with one another, or incorporate songs into your teachings.
• Kinesthetic students are hands-on learners, and benefit from physically figuring things out themselves. Even though this can be challenging to incorporate into online learning, get creative! Provide sewing patterns students can try out, give them a list of photos that they must take during the next week, or ask students with designing a logo themselves.

If you are selling on-line cooking courses. If you want to cater to four types of learning in one module it could include several paragraphs on the underlying principles for making bread rise. Include an infographic demonstrating the science behind it, include an instructional video that shows you explaining and discussing the principles aloud, and assign students the responsibility of creating their own bread loaf.

4. Use a compelling narrator

If you're making videos for your courses A skilled narrator could be a huge distinction. If you're a fan of audiobooks, then you already know the concept. An uninteresting, boring voiceover can send listeners right to sleep. However, someone that is engaging and entertaining has the opposite effect.

The narration you use is in keeping with the overall tone of your course. Are your topics entertaining and enjoyable? Sensitive and serious? Reliable and useful? Your videos should reflect that.

Take the time to get your narration's pace perfect in addition. It's easy to speak too fast in your voiceoversand cause it to be difficult for your students to keep up. Review your recorded recordings, and if you're not speaking in a timely manner, start over.

Don't attempt to sound like the voiceover talent of your choice. You're not going to sound like Morgan Freeman no matter how difficult you try, which is not what students are looking for. Simply be you!

If you think you're not a good voiceover artist, that's okay. Professional voiceover talents available to hire that don't cost an arm and a leg.

5. Incorporate polls, quizzes and other questions.

Questions and polls are an excellent method to assess what your students absorb, learn more about them as well as engage them on a an even higher quality. They also break up your content with something fun and different.

The best way to start every module with a poll. It is possible to ask questions that will help you educate students or even just encourage them to share something fun about themselves. What do they hope to take away from your program? What's their biggest accounting pain point? What's their favorite song? How many cakes have they baked?

Then, mix in questions throughout your class. In the case of Sensei LMS it is possible to create quizzes tied to the lessons. This means that you can design questions that are based on lessons that a student just completed. Mixing up question types like multiple choice True/False and fill-in the blank, short answer etc. This can help keep the conversation interesting.

It is possible to set types of questions like multiple choice or true/false to be auto-graded as well as manually grade open-ended questions your self. This gives you the opportunity to find areas of improvement to your course, and help any student who may need extra help.

6. Form an community

One of the most significant distinctions between physical and online learning spaces is the amount of community that is involved. Students taking online classes aren't able to sit next to other people taking the same class and discussing the subject with them, and asking questions out in front of them.

It is possible to create an identical atmosphere by creating an online community, either via a social network such as Facebook or using an WordPress plugin like BbPress. The topics can be divided in modules or lessons, or base them off of student characteristics (like age of the children, where they live, or what instruments they're learning). The communities provide students with the chance to debate topics with one another to brainstorm ideas, pose clarification questions, and even create friendships that inspire them to keep learning.

7. Include gamification into your plans.

Gamification applies the principles of gaming -- for example, the scoring of points and contests -- to other mediums including online learning. It is an excellent place to get creative! Here are some ideas:

• Incorporate quizzes, challenges and other activities into your lessons
• Points awarded based on the performance of students like completing work or scoring well on exams, etc. There is a reward to the student with the highest number of points.
• Encourage students to participate in your forum by awarding them badges
• Include the timer for your course for students to be motivated to complete an entire course
• Let students post their results on social media

Gamification can make learning fun and encourages healthy competition. This makes your courses more engaging for students.

8. Learn what your customers are searching for.

The best method to make your classes interesting for students is to give them the content they're searching for. If you are able to answer their concerns and assist them in achieving their objectives, they'll be more likely to be able to finish the course, write an excellent review and recommend it to their friends and family members.

You can then adjust your course content and format according to the students' expectations.

Your students are the most important thing.

When it comes down to it, your students online will be at the center of all you do. And if you keep their requirements in mind while creating your content for courses and structuring your class, you'll be able to keep them engaged, interested, and buying more.

Want more tips? Take a look at this article written by Sensei LMS regarding making online courses that are effective..