Have you recently set up your course or program, but aren’t seeing the great results you expected? Or have you been using the same online tools for months, but still feel that classroom learning isn't as ideal as offline learning?
If your answer is yes to any of the questions, don’t be too hard on yourself - it doesn’t mean that online education technology tools are ineffective! What you need to do instead is to assess your situation and some small but necessary changes. Here are four reasons why your online learning classes might be failing and how you can fix them.
Setting high expectations is a sure way to get disappointed. If your learners start having unrealistic expectations, no online learning class or learning management system will ever be satisfactory.
Solution: To combat this, create a clear outline of learning objectives. You can provide clear instructions in the beginning of every individual module in a course. Using interactive media is a great use of education technology to get learner excited for online learning class.
Now that your learners know what to expect, all they have to do is jump into the online learning class. But what if it’s not engaging enough to hold their attention and keep them coming back?
Solution: Don’t rely on a single type of education technology learning tool. Many online learning classes are hosted on Zoom now because it is a free real-time group class platform. However, there are more interactive edtech tools that you can use to truly engage your learners. By doing so, you will strengthen your learners’ capability to study independently outside of official class time.
If your focus is only on what is happening during a class, that could be a problem, too. Sometimes, learners are immersed during the lesson but do not take much information away to apply in other aspects of their lives. This is why it’s important to record and study your online learning class’ insights. Analysing the results will show you exactly how effective and successful your learning outcomes are.
Solution: As we mentioned, getting insight on your online clearing class is a great fix to this problem. You can use build-in analytics to collect data on learners’ learning progress to find out when and how they prefer learning, what is the most difficult for them, and which materials are the most engaging to them.
Finally, the online learning class’ content might not be an issue, but the learning management system might be. Sticking to a single learning management system means that you are limited in terms of functions and formats. While that might be sufficient for some lessons, yours might require something more.
Solution: Try looking for other platforms that you can use to supplement - not replace - and further optimise your current learning environment. This will allow you and your learners to use more functions during lessons while sticking with the current learning management system, which saves time on re-learning how to use a new system.
So, does your learning platform help you make learning smarter instantly? Our Chat-Based Learning Environment does.