Dropping student engagement levels in online learning can be stressful.
How will you best define student engagement on your Moodle™ e-learning site? Simply listening to lectures or following along in a course does not indicate if the students are truly engaged.
Here’s what to look for
Indicators of Student Engagement
Students being proactive with their own learning is the real yardstick to measure the engagement levels.
Here are some signs to look out for:
- Meaningful interactions with course content
- Active participation in course activities
- Frequent exchange of relevant information and new ideas
- Being curious and asking questions or giving feedback
- Taking learning goals seriously and being dedicated to completing them
You get the idea!
All in all, your learners must feel connected to your online learning initiative. They should willingly put forward the required effort and take ownership to find a level of personal success academically, socially, and emotionally. Losing students in your Moodle online learning program is a massive drain on your effort and resources.
When it comes to finding out how your students consume your course content online, how attentive they are, whether or not they like your course content, and whether or not they enjoy the overall experience, you are sure to get stumped as answering these questions can be tricky!
It’s important to build on all the pain and the effort you’ve taken to create purposeful course content in Moodle. If your students seem least interested then maybe great content is simply not enough! That’s when great UI and clean navigation become imperative.
Ways to Improve Online Learning Experience in Moodle™
#1 Improve the UI
This is the first point of contact, your students establish with your Moodle site. A visually appealing and simplified interface makes your site more approachable and student-friendly. This helps with better engagement as they can easily concentrate on their learning needs and goals. However, it’s not all about the UI. Functionality matters too as it is of primary importance when it comes to achieving a distraction-free learning environment.
Therefore, the first step is to de-clutter your Moodle learning screen space without affecting functionality or course learning requirements. The newest update of Edwiser RemUI has introduced a unique feature called FOCUS MODE. Once activated, tt effortlessly cleans up your Moodle course space to create a more dedicated study zone.
The Focus Mode feature intends to minimize the hassle and the amount of time taken for your learners to interact with your Moodle site.
The on-screen elements that are more likely to cause obstruction have been removed. These include the header, the footer, and the main navigation sidebar. This ensures maximum focus on the main learning material.
#2 Improve Navigation
If your students are not able to find the information they need quickly and with minimum effort, they’re not likely to stick around for too long. Nobody likes digging into deep and complex navigation menus that have a lot to offer. Moreover, it is visually distracting as it divides the attention and learning times of your students affecting their capacity to concentrate.
A good Moodle theme is crucial for simplified navigation. The Focus Mode feature considers optimized navigation for maximum student engagement as the top priority. It aims to provide a consistent learning experience across different modules of the course.
Absorbing information and studying can be a bit challenging especially amid the COVID 19 chaos. Most of them are learning from the comfort of their homes and are already battling physical distractions at home.
Don’t let your navigation ruin their study time!! You don’t want your Moodle navigation to become another source of distraction, do you!
The last thing you would want is your students trying to figure out course navigation. They’ve got too much on their plate already and your aim should be to make your course modules and activities easily accessible to them. Further, it lends immense credibility to your work, your e-learning course that you have so painstakingly created.
Edwiser RemUI’s Focus Mode features intuitive navigation and a clutter-free layout. All the possible navigation needs have been adequately addressed by adding it as a collapsible bar on the top.
The navigation elements are kept minimal to keep confusion at bay. This helps students to concentrate on finishing off the task at hand and fulfilling their learning objectives.
Another effective tip – You can provide a short tour demonstrating the navigation of your Moodle site to make it simpler for your students. Apart from easing things a little bit, it also takes that extra stress off your students in dealing with complex navigation. They might actually look forward to completing their course which is a great plus. This could increase student engagement levels to a considerable extent.
#3 Avoid too many actionable items
Too many learning choices in your Moodle course can overwhelm your students. Online learning comes with a lot of distractions. Learners can end up making poor decisions, they might regret later. This brings in a lot of negative energy and disappointment affecting learning motivation in general. The fact is, it is stressful to decide between multiple options on how to go about a course. When given a choice between a bunch of actions to be taken while learning, it can send your learners down a fathom-less rabbit hole. This can take them far away from the learning content that actually matters. It is easy to lose focus when faced with the decision about the next step or the next move in the course. This is how students can get frustrated and eventually drop off.
The Focus Mode feature keeps things straightforward. There are 2 minimal buttons – ‘Previous’ and ‘Next’ that will help your students to effectively switch between different modules or activities within a course by either moving forward or backward.
#4 Update Students with their Constant Progress
When students are allowed to view their progress, there are high chances that they proactively involve themselves in the learning process. This is a great way to keep learners motivated towards achieving their learning goals and the gains are even higher. It can be discouraging or sometimes plain boring to work or study without a fixed timeline. So, a quick overview of the overall course progress helps a great deal; especially when it comes to improving the quality of online learning. They can easily keep track of their course progress, they can know how they have been performing so far, assess how much is done and how much more is left and accordingly adjust the pace of learning at their own will. Learning without imposing is key to ease and enhance the learning environment.
The Focus Mode in Edwiser RemUI features a course progress bar that is consistent across all the RemUI supported course formats. This helps your students to monitor their course journey and be informed on how close they are to completing their tasks. Your students can now set clear expectations and stay committed to their learning objectives. It also prevents your learners from aimlessly moving around on your Moodle site without any logical flow. It is systematic and will efficiently help achieve learning that delivers incredible results.
Conclusion
So, if you start sensing some disengagement on your Moodle learning platform, make sure to quickly check with the parameters mentioned in this article. Students tuning out is not just about boredom anymore, it is much deeper. However, it can easily be resolved with a good Moodle theme providing a high-focus distraction-free learning zone.
The Focus Mode in Edwiser RemUI theme is built exclusively for this purpose. Don’t forget to check out the demo to know more about it, if you’re keen on keeping your student engagement levels in check and move towards more meaningful learning. It’s the next big thing in the Moodle space and can greatly promote active learning.
