Digital education continues to revolutionise teaching and learning—both in and out of traditional spaces. By 2025, the global elearning market is predicted to reach $325 billion from $107 billion back in 2015. Corporate training, seminars, and school lessons are no longer confined by the walls of a meeting room or lecture hall or classroom. Thanks to the increasing tools on offer to teachers and instructors, online learning is becoming ever more mainstream. However, just as educators need to adjust their mindsets and evolve new skills to teach online, students need support to adapt to this new way of learning. Read on to learn strategies to prepare your students for online study.
Research demonstrates that elearning increases learner retention rates from 25% to 60%. In comparison, face-to-face training retention rates are very low: 8% to 10%. This increase is due to the autonomy that elearning students gain over the learning process. Plus, if an online student happens to forget something, they can also revisit the material whenever they need to—a major advantage for revision purposes. Furthermore, learners can retake online quizzes if they failed the first time around; this significantly reduces pressure and allows students to focus on actually learning.
Although it is getting relatively easier to teach online as technology evolves, learners are becoming more selective when it comes to online learning. Elearning companies that go above and beyond fundamental learning design standards are raising the quality bar—and learner retention rates. Which means that course developers have to adapt and find ever more innovative ways to prepare students properly for online study, keep them engaged, and help them become successful in online learning.
While the following points aren’t necessarily the responsibility of learning designers, we believe it is in your interest to help your learners maximise their online study and actually finish courses. Supporting your students in their path to becoming a successful online learner will also assist in keeping your audience engaged.
To improve learner retention rates and increase online student engagement levels, it’s important to help them navigate the online learning process completely. Those who fail to support their audience in online study are effectively pitching learners in at the deep end and hoping they work out how to swim sufficiently to reach the end goal destination. The following steps for how to prepare for online study will effectively teach your learners how to swim in these new online course waters and help improve your course completion rates.
Communicate these steps for your students to take to improve their success rates in your online courses.
Online study is fantastic for convenience and content retention. Learners don’t even have to turn up to a class or training course in person. However, assisting learners to succeed in their online study has its own challenges and requires implementing a support process to help learners swim these new online waters and complete their courses successfully. Following the outlined steps above not only demonstrates that you, as a learning designer, have your students’ interests at heart but that you are keen to raise the bar in online education too.
Reach out to Oppida to discuss your online course needs and discover how we can facilitate the creation of new courses or the enhancement of current online content. Set up a call with our CEO and founder Bianca Raby, to find out more today.