All About Learner Engagement
Because of the quick advancement of computer technology, today’s students may virtually enter the classroom through online education, promoting the extension of academic borders—cognitive and physical. The biggest challenge in this type of education is maintaining a high learner engagement throughout the course.
Learner engagement is the amount of participation of students in instructional activities. Learner engagement is when students continue to participate and display more uplifting sentiments while participating in educational activities. Fredricks et al. categorized engagement into three types: emotional, behavioral, and cognitive. Further explained below are these three types of engagement.
The most fundamental type of engagement is behavioral engagement, which is evident and primarily involves students’ particular activities in the learning experience. Students engage cognitively when they comprehend and manage their mental effort during learning. Using various learning methodologies will result in varying degrees of thinking. Students’ emotional reactions, such as curiosity, boredom, happiness, grief, and worry, are the primary focus of the term “emotional engagement,” which some academics also associate with a sense of identity and values.
Increasing Learner Engagement
As a result of school reform initiatives, student engagement in learning is increasingly acknowledged as a sign of effective classroom instruction. When students show enthusiasm in their work, persevere through setbacks and barriers, and take obvious pleasure in reaching work objectives, they are seen as more engaged. Discover the different tips that one can consider in designing an interactive course.
Three relevant studies concerning the addition of interactive activities in courses to enhance learner engagement showed a positive relationship between the two. Sugden et al. concluded that adding interactive online activities to the course was seen favorably because they promoted deep learning and engaged dynamic, cognitive, and behavioral processes. The learning activities deemed to be most effective were those that were authentic, encouraged problem-solving, applied theory to actual situations, and boosted students’ sense of support. Furthermore, an increase in engagement was also seen by Sun & Hsieh among students who were subjected to a course with a gamified component and an interactive response system (IRS). Lastly, in research by Ullah & Anwar among computer science students, the utilization of interactive and collocative activities was agreed upon by the learners to be practical tools for improving learner experience and engagement.
Subramanian & Budhrani suggested six essential methods for enhancing the design of online projects and courses to make them more interactive: Develop a clear, rhythmic framework; establish clear goals and guidelines; promote design before execution; link with tools and applications from the actual world; create enjoyable challenges; incorporate persistent reflection.
Fostering a student-teacher relationship is an adequate foundation for a classroom management plan and setting the tone for engaging class sessions. Some strategies included in the course that can help with this are instructor-created video content, biographies, personalized video feedback, and video conference calls. Some applications that can assist in achieving this goal are FlipGrid and Remind.
References
Hu, M., & Li, H. (2017). Student Engagement in Online Learning: A Review. 2017 International Symposium on Educational Technology (ISET). https://doi.org/10.1109/iset.2017.17\
Martin, J. (2019). Building Relationships and Increasing Engagement in the Virtual Classroom. The Journal of Educators Online, 16(1). https://doi.org/10.9743/jeo.2019.16.1.9
Roque-Hernández, R. V., Díaz-Roldán, J. L., López-Mendoza, A., & Salazar-Hernández, R. (2021). Instructor presence, interactive tools, student engagement, and satisfaction in online education during the COVID-19 Mexican lockdown. Interactive Learning Environments, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2021.1912112
Salazar, J.H. (2010). Staying Connected: Online Education Engagement and Retention using Educational Technology Tools. American Society for Clinical Laboratory Science, 23, 53 – 58.
Subramanian, K., & Budhrani, K. (2020). Influence of Course Design on Student Engagement and Motivation in an Online Course. Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. https://doi.org/10.1145/3328778.3366828
Sugden, N., Brunton, R., MacDonald, J., Yeo, M., & Hicks, B. (2021). Evaluating student engagement and deep learning in interactive online psychology learning activities. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 37(2), 45–65. https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.6632
Sun, J. C.-Y., & Hsieh, P.-H. (2018). Application of a Gamified Interactive Response System to Enhance the Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation, Student Engagement, and Attention of English Learners. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 21(3), 104–116. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26458511
Ullah, A., & Anwar, S. (2020). The Effective Use of Information Technology and Interactive Activities to Improve Learner Engagement. Education Sciences, 10(12), 349. https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci10120349
Yang, D., Lavonen, J., & Niemi, H.M. (2018). Online Learning Engagement: Critical Factors and Research Evidence from Literature.