5 Ways to Make Educational
Content More Engaging
More people are learning online than ever before. In fact, the e-learning sector is projected to keep growing by double digits for at least the next few decades. The one challenge e-learning runs into is that it is competing with other forms of content that are all fighting for our attention. Because of platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, the learner’s focus is pulled, and thus their engagement with the content, as well as its understanding, is affected. So, what can instructors do to make their educational content more engaging?
Ask Lots of Questions
Teachers ask a few hundred questions a day. Why? Because questions make students think about the material before them as well as the question asked. By asking questions, instructors force students to use their knowledge, combine it and come up with an answer instead of the student imply repeating what the teacher has told them. Asking questions is also a great way to build intrigue, with the next thing you say after the question being an important piece of information that students are likely to be more engaged with.
Keep It Short
Most students’ attention spans are not as long as many of us would like them to be. Because of this, long-form education content often loses its audience about 15-18 minutes in. This length is long enough to hold a student’s attention while passing on the information you need to. Any longer than this, and engagement starts to plummet. Educational content creators should find a way to keep their content short while ensuring their message is passed on. They also need to think about how to do this concisely and memorably.
Create and Break Flow
Regardless of the type of educational content, learning can start to feel tedious and repetitive. Injecting a little flow to the content can make a huge difference. The flow introduced in this case makes it easier for students to keep learning without having to put a lot into switching from page to page, lesson to lesson, or chapter to chapter. A great example of how this flow is created is through the use of an autoplay button on educational videos.
Even when there is a need to create flow to keep learners engaged, there is also a need to break this flow to avoid students staring at their screens without taking in the information. This can be done through pausing the videos after a learner has watched a few of them or adding tests, quizzes, and games between lessons or videos. This break in flow will give your learners a chance to calibrate and refocus.
Integrate Lessons from Outside the Classroom
Students do not want to engage with the same type of content every day. Engagement levels will fall once fatigue and the overload that comes with learning a complicated subject start setting in. To avoid this, some instructors have started bringing lessons from the outside world into the classroom. For example, an interesting biology topic like how nose breathing has been shown to improve endurance in sports like football is a great way of bringing interesting subjects into the classroom that students might be interested in. These lessons may have a tangential relationship with the subject matter at hand, but they serve as an interesting way of breaking the learning monotony while teaching the students something useful, even though many of them might realize that this is a lesson in itself.
Move to Online Boards
Online education is a new approach to teaching and studying. Everyone had to leave previous lifestyle and move to the distance learning mode.
There’s appeared the question how to simplify learning process and make it more interesting and interactive. That’s why solutions like an online whiteboard appeared and now help educators and students in organizing all things together on a cozy workspace. You can share projects, make web pages, mind maps, delegate assignments and tasks with students or colleagues staying at home.
We Are All in This Together
As many students move to online learning platforms, engagement levels have started to decrease. There are so many distractions around them, and the lack of interest in some of the lessons taught is not helping at all. All teachers and instructors ought to think outside the box to find ways to increase engagement as this is the best way students will benefit from the lessons taught.
