Think about it. Your learner’s needs are ever-changing. Your eLearning strategy needs to adapt accordingly. The mode of learning, content presentation, content delivery need to gradually transform to ensure effective content consumption and maximize learner engagement.
What’s important is to make sure learning technology is equipped with the right tools to support you.
Let’s understand this with a story.
Ted, an elementary school teacher for 12 years, decided to launch his very own teaching website. Things looked good – he had great course content, and sign-ups were on the rise.
2 years down the line, course completion rates started to dwindle, sign-ups had lessened and student engagement was at an all-time low.
The content was top-notch and had been performing well before. So, what had changed?
Nothing. – and there lay the problem.
His website didn’t cater to student expectations. The styling was obsolete, the website was not mobile-friendly, and the content delivery techniques were outdated.
The solution?
Enter “Learning Technology Evolution”
Learning technology evolution is essentially making sure your learning management system keeps evolving to support the steadily changing learning landscape.
It’s about meeting learner needs and optimizing content provisioning methods to increase the level of engagement.
So how do you go about it?
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latest trends, we’ve curated a list of 6 eLearning strategies to help make sure your system stays current.
Here you go!
#1 Make Learning Personal
This is a trend we can’t get enough of.
This is not personalized messaging or notifications; this is beyond personalization.
This is about making students feel that they are a part of the system – we’re talking about personal learning paths.
With personal learning paths, you have to get students involved in creating their own progression route. Let them decide the next steps or how they want the content to be fed to them.
You see, each student has their own goals and objectives when it comes to learning. It is up to you to empower them to set their own milestones. Let them choose the order of course content delivery and the type of assessment they find best. This will help them learn at their own pace and through a technique that suits them best.
#2 Promote Active Learning
Time and again, active learning has proven to facilitate the learning process. Active learning is basically making sure students participate in the learning process.
Instead of simply being a passive learner, active learning is an eLearning strategy that advocates student interaction and involvement. When students actively participate in the learning environment, they value the course and take responsibility for their performance.
This could be through live video sessions, webinars or events. It could also be through forums, group discussions, collaboration assignments or interactive quizzes.
A sure-fire and easy to implement technique is to enable course feedback and reviews to get your students’ views on how course content could be improved.
#3 Power-up the Classroom Experience
eLearning has the advantage of being convenient, but classroom learning has the advantage of being collaborative.
Bring the classroom advantage online with groups, social networks, discussion forums, collaboration tools and more.
Collaborative learning advantages include
- Increased student retention
- Improved learning experience
- Social interaction skill development
- Creating an involved, exploratory learning environment…. among several others.
You can also take the experience a notch up by integrating tools similar to those you would find in a classroom – for example, a grade book to maintain student grades, manual assessment tools, or a notes plugin to help promote engagement.
#4 Introduce Game Based Learning
This is different from gamification.
Gamification has been explained and explored by several learning practitioners. But game based learning is a relatively new strategy when it comes to the world of eLearning.
“Game based learning (GBL) is a type of gameplay that has defined learning outcomes.
Game based learning describes an approach to teaching, where students explore relevant aspect of games in a learning context designed by teachers.”
– EdTechReview
While game-based learning has always been a popular approach to teaching especially for K-12 students, quite a few course authors are considering it as an engaging tool in the eLearning space. Game-based learning has proven to improve language and memory skills.
Integrate game play to create an engaging and interactive learning experience.
#5 Make the System Friendly for All
While students and teachers are the primary consumers of your eLearning platform, you cannot discount its use by other user-roles.
Your platform might be used by moderators, parents, managers, guest instructors, course authors, instruction designers, and more.
You need to create a system that supports the needs of these varied user roles.
For example, parents or managers (in a corporate learning environment) might want to enroll students (children or employees respectively) on their behalf. There should be a simple method to help make this happen. In fact, you can go a step ahead and make it easy for them to track student progress too.
In the case of guest authors, you might consider shielding them from the complexities of an eLearning system, such as the settings panel or system backend, so that it’s easy for them to post content without any hassles.
All types of users should find your system welcoming and easy to use.
#6 Blend Teaching Techniques
Whether to add different types of courses or to pass on the responsibility of content creation to others, multiple instructors should always be welcome.
The primary advantage that we see, however, is the variation each instructor brings to the table – an “X” factor if you may.
With multiple instructors on board, you’ve got every instructor bringing in their own perspectives and experience. Analytics will help you understand the content that works well, so that you can work with fellow instructors to implement such tactics in their courses to increase student engagement results and boost course outcomes.
Closing Words
As eLearning keeps evolving, you do not have much option than to keep up with learner demands. Creating an unrivaled system is all about offering a contemporary learner experience.
By implementing the eLearning strategies mentioned above, you’ll be set on the right path. Just make sure your underlying LMS is up for the task! Keep analysing the outcomes and tweak the strategies to suit you best.
That’s all from us for now.
Over to you!
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