How To Achieve True Interactivity
Learners are better able to engage in courses in which they can explore and learn at their own pace. More so, learners love eLearning professionals that react fast to the latest trends like this. Interactivity is highly crucial to online courses, but how do you achieve true interactivity in online learning? Read this article to the end, and we will show you how you can achieve real interactivity in your online training course.
1. Encourage Group Collaboration
Encourage group collaboration to achieve true interactivity among learners. Learners will stay engaged and process information better when given the freedom to interact with other learners. The use of discussion forums is getting popular in online courses, and it is a great way to encourage group collaboration. The learners can communicate with the instructor or other learners to assimilate more of the training through the forum.
For example, you can connect social media elements like Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp to your online course. Put learners into groups and encourage them to solve questions in their forum groups and group chat.
2. Use Branching Scenarios
The use of branching scenarios is one of the fascinating practices in online courses. It is the best example of interactivity in eLearning training because learners make decisions and not only answer questions. Learners are in charge of how the online course will go based on the choices they make. Thus, learners change the stories based on their selection and preference.
Furthermore, in branching scenarios, learners are given multiple options to choose from, and their decision cannot be wrong. Each selection leads to a different result. For example, in a diving course, you can use branching scenarios to ask learners about different crises and how they will respond to them.
3. Incorporate Interactive Elements In Each Module
To get true interactivity in your online course, you should add many interactive elements in your online course modules. If possible, add an interactive element to each slide or page. You don't need to add quizzes to every page.
It could be a simple interactive element like a simple drag-and-drop, a simple click for the pop-up message, typing in words or anything that can call your learners to action, etc. However, be careful not to overdo it in order to avoid overwhelming the learners with too much stuff on just one page or slide. Do this moderately by adding at most 2-3 interactive elements per page or slide.
4. Introduce Quizzes Or Assessments At The End Of Each Module
Quizzes allow you to evaluate the effectiveness of your online training course. It also allows the students to gauge their ability and progress in the online course. Furthermore, a greater percentage of learners love quizzes and when you integrate quizzes into your online course it will be fun.
When you do this try to introduce real-life problems that your learners can relate to instead of using multiple-choice questions. Use video or audio to ask questions to your learners. The important thing is to make sure that your assessments are a little different from each other.
The engagement will be determined by the type of assessment. For example, if your assessment is dull and boring, your learners will be carried away and they'll lose focus. However, if your assessment is engaging and interactive, learners will pay attention to your content.
5. Gamification
Gamification is one of the best advancements in online training courses. Gamification is the use of the gaming experience (like point scoring, competition with others, rules of play) in online training. Gamification is an element of learning that can boost learners' engagement and persuade them to learn.
However, in the past, people complained about video games. They said they were occupying too much of a kid's time and attention. They are engaged while playing games and get easily distracted with other activities including learning. Meanwhile, learning professionals have integrated this gaming experience into learning to make learners stay engaged while playing games and also learn. People enjoy challenging games. Therefore, they will love a challenging test with a gamification experience.
If you want true interactivity in your online training course, gamification is an element to integrate into learning.
Conclusion
True interactivity in online training courses can boost engagement and bring you closer to your clients. If you want true interactivity in your online training course, you should consider the above methods and see how much these will drive your eLearning courses.
