3 Tips To Create Less Monotonous, More Engaging eLearning

3 Tips To Create Less Monotonous, More Engaging eLearning
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Summary: It is one thing to get information across and another to actually ensure that learners adequately engage with your content in a manner that assures they retain the information for a long time. The goal of any course is to ensure that learners recall and apply the learning when there is a need. How can this be achieved?

How To Create Less Monotonous, More Engaging eLearning

When you are given the task of getting online courses developed, spend some time with your Instructional Designers or learning experts to decide how to make the course engaging and interesting to your learners.

A well-thought-out instructional strategy is the key. This means the learning expert designs the storyboard keeping in mind the type of content (Facts, Concepts, Processes, Procedures, or Principles), how the knowledge/skill will be used by learners after completing the course, the profile of learners (their current understanding and work environment), and where they would access the information. So, when Instructional Designers design courses, they are vying for the attention of learners who are already busy with their daily responsibilities and perhaps have limited time at their disposal to devote to learning.

eBook Release: 8 Ways To Improve Learner Engagement In eLearning Using Articulate Storyline
eBook Release
8 Ways To Improve Learner Engagement In eLearning Using Articulate Storyline
This guide will help you increase course completion rates and accelerate employee performance.

So, if you want to ensure that your learners do not consider taking up the course an additional burden, you need to ensure that courses have some fun and engaging elements that make learning less of a chore and more interesting. While there are many ways courses can be made fun and engaging, this article looks at 3 tips.

1. Include Game Elements In Assessments

Game elements make good knowledge check tools. For example, you are designing a product training course where it is important for learners to familiarize themselves with the different parts of the product, including a crossword game at the end of the module will be a good idea.

Articulate Quizmaker is one tool that has inbuilt quizzes and templates that allow you to create many such interesting knowledge check tools. Games such as Bouquets & Brickbats and Fabulous Four are easy to develop using authoring tools such as Articulate Storyline.

2. Have Knowledge Levels And Leaderboards

Another way to motivate learners to complete the course is to add levels and leaderboards. This needs to be planned right at the time of creating the eLearning course outline. Instead of dividing your eLearning course into lessons or modules, divide course content into knowledge milestones or levels. Learners can get to unlock the next level once they complete the lower levels of the eCourse. This gives learners a sense of achievement and propels them to move on to the next level.

Knowledge levels can be supplemented with leaderboards in the Learning Management System (LMS). Once learners log on to the LMS, they will get insights about how many have taken the course, levels completed, where they stand vis-à-vis others, and so on. This infuses a light competitive spirit and can be a point of discussion at the water cooler or during coffee breaks, ultimately motivating others to complete the course as well.

3. Allow Personalization And Provide Control To Learners

We are dealing with adult learners and they would appreciate some control on how they wish to access courses. Instead of forcing learners to follow a pre-designed linear path, you can provide learners multiple options from the dashboard of the course. Typically, any course starts with the fundamentals and goes on to the depths of the subject as the course progresses through modules or lessons. There may be learners who do not require to go through the basics. For such learners, it helps to give them an option to jump to an advanced module, rather than forcing them to go through each and every topic. At most, you can have a qualifying test which determines if the learner to ready to go to the advanced section of the course.

Instead of cluttering the main course with all the available content, you can segregate content into ‘need-to-know’ (which can be part of the main course) and ‘nice-to-know’ (which can be in the form of FAQs, Glossary, How-to Guides, as independent sections accessible from the course dashboard). If you are using an avatar as part of the instructional strategy, give learners the option to choose a character from a list of options.

These tips may seem quite simple and obvious, but you would be surprised how these are easily ignored when designing online courses. When bogged down by time constraints and tough deadlines, we tend to overlook or ignore these simple tips that could actually be crucial in increasing course completion rates.

If you want to learn more about how to increase learner engagement, download the eBook 8 Efficient Ways To Improve Learner Engagement In eLearning Using Articulate Storyline.

Related articles:

1. Role Of Interactivities In eLearning And How You Can Use Them

2. 4 Compelling Reasons Why A Custom GUI Is A Must For eLearning Courses

3. 4 Levels Of Learning Interaction In Online Courses

4. eBook: 8 Efficient Ways To Improve Learner Engagement In eLearning Using Articulate Storyline