How can you ensure that students are engaged in Your Online Classes

Courses online are extremely flexible and could be an effective instrument for many business. Bloggers can offer courses regarding cooking, organization and crafting, as well as interior design. An accounting firm could offer education programs on budgeting or taxes. A music shop online could sell virtual guitar classes along with their sheets of music and other instruments.

However, regardless of the kind of class you provide, student engagement is critical. Students who are interested and invested complete your classes, enroll for additional ones, leave good reviews, and recommend your company to their peers.

We'll review some practical ways to make your lessons more enjoyable.

1. Break your courses into digestible pieces

Our attention spans aren't very long. There are a variety of studies that report different lengths of time, but most are in agreement that our attention span is between 20 and 30 minutes.

It's possible that you have high-quality, interesting content to create many hours of content- that's great! However, your students may not be able to fully be engaged for as long one time.

Another way to tackle this is to divide your courses into digestible parts using subcategories and categories. If, for instance, you're selling a class on beginning solids for infants It could be divided into categories like:

• Introduction to solids
• What is the best time to introduce solid food?
• Signals of preparedness
• Gear and equipment that you need
• First feeding schedule
• Best first foods
• How do you cut and prep
• Examples of recipes
• Introducing allergens
• Common food allergens
• Warning signs to watch for
• Strategies for serving allergens

Each grouping might contain texts, images video, or other materials. Students may complete the assignments at their own pace -- whether they want to work on one piece at a given time, or take a seat and read through them all at once.

Sensei LMS refers to these categories as modules, courses, and Lessons. The Courses can be divided into any number of Modules Then break each Module up into a number of lessons.

The navigation process is easy for students as well as allowing them to swiftly see what's coming up in the course.

2. Create effective graphic designs

Graphics are a effective way of engaging 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 integrate images into your courses. If you're listing numerical data include a chart graph that reflects that information. If you're looking to compare the differences between two different ingredients, you should include photos of them side by side. If you're talking about a particular type of houseplant, add photos.

In creating graphics, or selecting photos, keep in mind a few basic tips:

• Choose high-quality pictures. Even though you don't have to employ an experienced photographer, you should make sure that the images you purchase or shoot look professional. The subject must be always clearand no blurry images! The lighting should make the image easily digestible.
• Think of empty white spaces. White space is the empty area around the contents of the graph. So if you have text lines or a pie chart, you'll need to leave enough space for the graphic to breath. It helps the viewer better absorb the information contained in your graph and get the meaning behind it.
• Use photos of individuals as needed. Humans are wired to respond to faces, and we naturally turn our attention towards them. By adding photos with an attractive face will aid in connecting people to them and the topic of your choice.
• Avoid getting too complex. Avoid adding tons of busy pictures that clash against one another as well as the content that is educational in your courses. Keep in mind that your graphics are there to grab interest, create something more interesting, and assist in the learning process. Sometimes, simple is the best strategy.

3. Appeal to a variety types of learners

Everyone learns differently. In fact, there are many learning styles which is why if you wish to get as involved with your pupils as you possibly can, then you'll appeal to all of them whenever you can. The following are the most commonly used, and how 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 on the course pages themselves or as downloadable PDFs.
• Visual images, graphic and video are ideal for this style of learner. Actually, in one study, viewers retained 95 percent of the message while watching a film, compared to just 10% when reading the information. Video can be a effective method of teaching users online.
• Auditory The types of learners prefer to glean information by listening and speaking. This is why you may provide videos of yourself explaining the concepts students will be able to listen to. You could also provide access to a podcast in your classes, have a weekly Zoom call that opens up one-on-one discussion, or even integrate songs into your classes.
• Kinesthetic students learn through hands-on experiences that benefit from physically learning things by themselves. While this might seem tricky to incorporate into online education, be creative! Provide sewing patterns students can practice themselves, assign the list of pictures they need to take for the week, or task students with designing an identity for themselves.

Imagine that you offer the online classes for cooking. If you were to appeal to all four learning styles within one class, you might have several paragraphs on the principles of making bread rise. Include an infographic demonstrating the scientific process involved, and include videos of you showing how to explain the basic principles, and assign students the task of making their own loaf of bread.

4. Make sure you have a convincing Narrator

If you're creating videos to teach your students An effective narration can be a huge difference. If you're fond of audiobooks, you know this idea. The monotonous, uninteresting voiceover can send listeners right to sleep, while someone who's engaging and interesting is the exact opposite.

The narration you use conveys the mood of the course. Does your subject sound fun and enjoyable? Serious and sensitive? Reliable and useful? The content you upload should reflect this.

Be sure to set the pace of your narration correct as well. It's not difficult to speed up your voiceovers, which can cause it to be difficult for your students to keep up. Check your recordings and, if you're speaking too fast, start over.

Don't attempt to sound like your favourite voiceover artists. It's not possible to sound anything like Morgan Freeman no matter how you attempt, and that's not the type of voiceover students are searching for. Simply be you!

If you think that's not your forte, that's okay. Professional voiceover artists available for hire for a price that's not the price of a pound and a half.

5. Incorporate polls, quizzes and other questions.

Polls and quizzes can be an effective method to assess how much your students are absorbing and learning about, and engage them at a higher degree. They also allow you to break down your material with something fun and different.

The best way to start every lesson with a questionnaire. You can ask questions that will help you educate students or even just inspire them to be fun about themselves. What can they expect to take away from your program? What's their biggest accounting pain point? Which song is their most listened to? How many cakes have they baked?

And then, you can mix and match quizzes throughout your course. With Sensei LMS the quizzes are linked to lessons. This means that you can design questions based on the lesson that a student just completed. Mixing up question types such as multiple choice, True/False Fill in the blank, short answer, etc. -- can also keep the conversation fascinating.

You can set question types like multiple choice or true/false that will be graded automatically and then mark open-ended question your self. It gives you the chance to identify areas for improvement to your course, and contact any students that might require a bit of extra help.

6. Create an community

One of the most significant difference between the physical and online learning environments is the community engaged. Online students miss out on sitting alongside other students taking the same class, discussing topics with them, and asking questions out loud.

It is possible to create an identical atmosphere by creating the help of an online community on a social media platform such as Facebook or with an WordPress plugin like BbPress. The topics can be divided in modules or lessons or based on of student characteristics (like age of their children, where they live, or what instruments they're learning). These communities give students the chance to debate subjects with each other to brainstorm ideas, pose clarification questions, and even establish friendships to encourage students to continue learning.

7. Integrate gamification

Gamification combines the fundamentals of gaming -- for example, point scoring and competition -in other media, like online learning. This is a fantastic opportunity to be creative! Here are some suggestions:

• Incorporate quizzes, challenges and other activities into your lessons
• Award points based on activities like completing work, scoring well on quizzes, etc. The award will include a prize for the student who scores the most
• Reward students who frequently engage in your forums by awarding them badges
• Add an progress bar to your courses in order to encourage students to complete a module
• Students should publish their marks via social media

Incorporating gamification makes learning more engaging and stimulates healthy competition, making your lessons more interesting to students.

8. Understand what your audience is looking for

The best method to make your classes enjoyable for students is to give them what they're looking for. If you are able to answer their concerns and assist them in achieving their goals, they're more likely to finish your course, leave an outstanding review, and then recommend it to acquaintances and relatives.

Then, adjust your program's contents and structure as necessary to meet their expectations.

Your students are the most important thing.

If you're going to get down to the matter, your learners online are the core of all you do. If you take their requirements in mind while creating your content for courses and arranging your courses it will help you keep them engaged, interested, and buying more.

Need more ideas? Check out this article from Sensei LMS about designing effective online courses.