5 Successful Strategies for Avoiding eLearning Course Drop-Outs:
It doesn’t matter how good your course is if no one actually takes it. That means getting people to sign up in the first place. But you also have to get the people who do sign up to stick with it. High drop-out rates can put a damper on any eLearning instructors enthusiasm.
Here are 5 ways to avoid drop-outs:
Establish Clear Benefits
Students are more likely to make a commitment to your course and actually follow through if they know exactly how it will help them. This could be something concrete, like a course certificate, or something as simple as a list of skills they’ll be developing. Show them how the things they’ll learn can be applied to their work or life in a way that’s relevant.
It’s also important to be clear about your expectations from the beginning. Be up front about what kind of participation is necessary to successfully complete the course, that way students aren’t surprised by the amount of assignments and work required.
Cater to Different Learning Styles
People have a wide variety of learning styles. It’s important to cater to these different styles if you want to effectively engage and teach a wide audience, especially in an online classroom where what we see, hear, and experience is more limited.
A mix of lectures, written material, and hands-on coursework is a good start towards creating a balanced curriculum. Implement different question formats into exams, from multiple choice to essay-style answers. And make sure to provide self-study materials for those students who have commitments that prevent them from following along with lessons live.
Organize Material
You might have a ton of information to share, and that’s great. But if you want the average student to follow along from beginning to end, it’s important to break your course down into smaller lessons and modules.
Feed your knowledge to learners in bite-sized chunks that they can sink their teeth into and digest one by one. This will keep them from being overwhelmed, it will help them learn more effectively, and will ultimately increase participation.
Provide a Support System
No matter how good your course may be, students will inevitably run into problems. It could be a technical issue, where a particular module isn’t opening correctly on their device. Or maybe they don’t understand a particular lesson.
It’s crucial that you have a support system in place to help these people. This could be an email address for them to direct questions or a forum where they can work through their issues publicly.
Another benefit of implementing a forum or something similar is that it gives your students a way to connect and communicate with their peers, which is another way to raise participation and lower drop outs.
Make Material Engaging
People join your course because they ultimately want to learn. But you can help them help themselves by presenting your lessons in a way that’s as engaging and easy to follow as possible.
No matter how complex the subject you’re teaching, it doesn’t have to be totally dry and boring. Interesting assignments, humor, and gamification are just a few of the ways you can make your lessons more engaging.
In the end, you may not be able to completely avoid having drop-outs. But by applying these strategies to your own courses, you can definitely reduce them. Not only that, the students who stick around will ultimately gain more from the course.
How can you fit these tips into your own lessons? Let us know your tips and tricks to reducing drop-outs in your classes!