If you and your learners are anything like me and mine, endless online classes and meetings have started taking their toll. Perhaps especially for older learners the online classroom is unfamiliar, and it is hard to sustain interest. This is particularly so when the learning experience is (perceived to be) scary or passive, with fewer opportunities for spontaneous interaction and active participation.
As teachers, there are a number of things we can do to improve this, in particular by increasing and maintaining engagement levels. Whereas students’ motivation leads them to sign up for a particular course or get up on time to join the class on Monday morning, engagement is how active and present they are during the class. Motivation levels are hard to change, at least in the short term. But engagement is more under the influence of what a teacher does. Novice teachers often think making lessons more exciting or entertaining will lead to greater engagement. This can help, but engagement is about more than learners’ enjoyment alone.
Behavioural and cognitive engagement
In fact, engagement describes all the different ways in which learners commit to what is happening in their learning at the time. Most teachers think of engagement as whether or not their learners are active and participating in class activities. Whether they ask questions or answer them, post in forums, and so on. These are examples of behavioural engagement, and they are usually easy to observe.
However, that is only part of the picture. It is of course quite possible for a learner to participate in a group activity but not concentrate much or focus hard. In other words, they may be behaviourally, but not cognitively engaged. Developing tasks that require learners to be alert and pay attention are more likely to see learners investing greater mental resources. In an online setting, teachers can encourage this by ‘keeping learners on their toes’.
For example, by:
- asking questions at different times (not just when learners expect it)
- asking questions of different learners (make sure to include everyone, not just those who are most vocal)
- combining easier (perhaps more ‘fun’ tasks) with those that require deeper concentration
- encouraging the use of the chat window to give learners more time to reflect before formulating their replies
Social engagement
Another type of engagement is social. This deals with how much learners interact with others and feel a sense of belonging to the group. Again, a learner may complete the required tasks, but if they do so without feeling they are working with and getting to know others (that they are a part of a community), then they may not benefit as much. Here, teachers can do a number of things:
- Include a lot of activities that require learners to get to know each other, especially in the beginning of the course (here is a great list to get you started)
- Ask everyone to turn on their cameras at all times and type in their full screenname
Make sure there are plenty of opportunities for participants to exchange their experiences, both during and in between classes. Information or opinion gap tasks work really well for this - Use the breakout rooms to pair students or assign small groups for a brief sharing session.
Allocate time for social activities, for example by just chatting about the weekend in the breakout rooms.
Affective engagement
A final type of engagement is affective. This relates to our learners’ feelings, whether they feel involved and experience a sense of purposefulness. To achieve this, we can:
- Spend more time reviewing expectations and outcomes for the course at the start. Clarify what you expect each learner to do
- Create a theme for the course. Perhaps use a project that everyone contributes to?
- Use peer-assessment as a way to encourage a sense of sharing between learners
- Give learners some control over the lessons and the course structure by asking for their ideas and preferences
Preparing learners for online learning
For learners to feel comfortable with the new format for their lessons, it is important to give considerable time for preparation. Many learners may not feel confident setting up their audio and video. Holding a brief session on camera placement, the use of a headset, good lighting and so on prior to the official start of the course can be a great help. The same goes for an opportunity to practise using the chat window, ‘raising one’s hand’, and turning on and off the camera and microphone. Don’t assume that because you referred your learners to a YouTube video on these topics, that they will feel confident in class.
Similarly, it is important to set clear expectations prior to the course about participation. If you want your learners to ask questions throughout the lesson, then say so and be explicit. Try saying, “I expect all of you to ask at least 2-3 questions every class on average” or “I want you to post a message to 3 classmates on our forum this week”. This is far clearer than saying “Please contribute as much as you can”. You can of course link this to your assessment but again, make this clear to the learners.
As some learners may not be familiar with some of these practices, there may be some initial reluctance. But learner feedback and research are clear: actively engaging your learners (not just behaviourally, but also cognitively, socially and affectively), has a tremendous impact on learner satisfaction and outcomes.
If you’re teaching adult learners, we have some useful information from Heike Krüsemann on getting the most out of speaking activities in an online setting. We also have some useful information on flipped learning and using our eBooks, with a focus on the adult and young adult language course EVOLVE.