If you’ve seen a drop in expected results and outcomes, it could be due to student disengagement. There are many causes for disengagement, including poor tool choices, unidentified support needs, and unclear goals and expectations. As education delivery options have changed with EdTech (educational technology), you can now use data-driven insights to help you better identify and overcome learning barriers. So, let’s uncover how to identify disengaged students and how you can effectively re-engage them with EdTech.
We first need to understand the human elements at play. Our instructional designers at Catalyst say it’s essential to take the time to understand your students and their barriers to learning. We can use EdTech to support this discovery process, but a personalised approach is required to pinpoint the causes. Then, we can use EdTech to measure the impact of approaches to re-engage students.
What can cause students to be disengaged?
Students can become disengaged for various reasons, including:
- stress
- personal circumstances
- learning difficulties
- relationships with their peers and teachers
- not understanding why the content is relevant
- work and other commitments
- lack of agency
- technical issues.
How to identify disengaged students online
With online learning, it can be more difficult to see the signs of student disengagement than in the classroom, because you don’t have immediate feedback via body language or negative attitudes. But here are some things to look out for:
- taking longer to complete modules than previously
- not participating in forums or during video classes
- being distracted, zoned out or talking in class
- a negative attitude towards course content
- doing something other than the course content
- lack of interaction with peers
- completing assignments late or not at all
- non-attendance.
With virtual learning being used more and more, understanding how to highlight and overcome this challenge is key to student success and support.
How to understand barriers to engagement
Set up metrics to identify disengaged students
Firstly, you need to develop a framework for understanding what disengagement is for your students. Not only will this support you to re-engage your students now, but it will also help you in the future. By having an established framework, you'll be better equipped to identify when a student needs support and intervene sooner. To start this process, you’ll need to:
- define what it means when a student is becoming disengaged
- set up metrics to measure their disengagement. For instance, you can use insights from when a student last viewed a course to know if they're engaged, disengaged, or becoming disengaged. In Learning Management Systems (LMS) such as Moodle, plugins can help identify trends, like tracking attendance and the amount of time spent on a course.
- ensure you're aware of changes in behavioural patterns you may not have had insight into in a physical classroom. For instance, if students previously sped through course content and now take longer to complete content. Or perhaps students are quieter online compared to in person.
How to begin to re-engage disengaged students
Check in with your students
Now that you have ways to identify disengagement, you can use this to help inform who needs support. You'll want to use a personalised approach for each student. Take the time to discover what barriers are stopping them from engaging with the content and listen with an open mind. Additionally, reflect on communication styles - each student may respond more positively to different methods. For example, if your student isn't already engaged, they may ignore a survey. But if you offer options, they may be more open to responding. For instance, communicating:
- face-to-face
- by video call
- by phone.
Ensure you share your questions before meeting so students have time to reflect on them. This can reduce anxiety when you meet, as they already know what’s expected of them.
Articulate the value of course content
When students are disengaged, they may struggle to care about completing their assignments and coursework. To combat this, ensure they understand the ‘why’ behind each course as well as the bigger picture context. Reflect on whether you’re explaining your course objectives clearly alongside their relevance to your students. Learn how to communicate the value of your courses in our blog post.
Make your support options obvious
In parallel, make your support options and contact methods obvious. Ensure your students know who to contact for what and how to contact them. Moreover, to relieve anxiety and barriers around asking for help, consider the following:
- establishing the channels of communication in an easy-to-access place. For instance, email.
- generating automated confirmation messages with an expected response time. For example: "I'll aim to get back to you within one working day".
- providing virtual office hours, so students can visit you outside class hours.
- using forums so students can support each other with their learning.
Learn more about providing visible support in our blog post.
Set clear expectations
Clear expectations remove uncertainty and reduce stress. Because some students will feel uncomfortable asking questions, consider where you could be clearer in setting expectations. Students need clarity on all aspects of their learning, including:
- assignments and course objectives
- the competency required for different grade levels
- when assignments are due
- the code of conduct.
All of this information should be easily accessible, and your students should know where to find it. For example, you could have a separate page for the code of conduct.
Create achievable and measurable goals with your students
Goal setting helps students connect with their learning journey and take ownership. Plus, goals can provide students with direction whilst boosting motivation and confidence. You can use frameworks such as SMART goals (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound) to create and capture goal progress.
Make your students' goals and their progress visible to support their re-engagement. Set up times to check in with their goals and review their relevance as they work on them. Plus, ensure you're providing feedback on their efforts. Praising effort can encourage a growth mindset especially if your students feel stuck or are doubting their abilities. The growth mindset is the belief you can improve instead of having limits. Focusing on growth is key to re-engaging students, as they need to believe they can achieve their goals.
Provide time management tips
It can be frustrating when something takes longer to complete than expected. Review where you can provide context and realistic expectations for your students. For example, you could provide:
- a clear overview of course lengths
- suggestions of dates for when to start assignments
- estimates of the amount of time or effort an assignment will take
- rubrics for assignments that may have grey areas around expectations. If you’re using an LMS like Moodle, you can set up rubrics for grades.
Plus, consider what insights you can provide by using analytics. For instance, Tōtara LMS has a range of options where you can identify the average time it takes to complete courses.
Provide frequent, timely and specific feedback
When students are afraid to fail, it can stop them from trying. However, if you provide specific and constructive feedback regularly, you can provide clarity and context to support their learning. You can provide feedback in comments, in your catch-ups, or even in course content. For instance, if you include pre-assessments such as quizzes before assessments, your students can gain feedback before receiving a grade. By failing safely through non-graded content, students can learn from their mistakes, and not feel like they reflect on their ability.
If you need support developing pre-assessment content or shaping content for your students, consider partnering with an eLearning consultant.
Build in more social interaction
Due to learning online, your students could desire more social interaction and connection. Socialising can aid in building a sense of belonging and improve peer relationships and consequently peer learning. Reflect on how you can incorporate moments of interaction between your students to strengthen these. Such as:
- group discussions
- rules around when it’s appropriate and encouraged to have a camera on in video calls so students aren’t talking to blank screens. Ensure you’re having a good balance of time when cameras are on and off to avoid video call fatigue.
- offering moments for group work and projects
- incorporating competition into learning.
Strategies to prevent and overcome disengagement
Use data-driven insights to measure student progress
Once you’ve understood your students’ learning barriers and have developed a way forward, you’ll need to review how they are progressing. Check if there are any improvements in your metrics, including:
- login rates
- completion rates
- time spent on courses.
If your EdTech doesn’t support the metrics you want to measure engagement with, consider working with a trusted eLearning partner to create a bespoke solution.
Review your course content
Review if you're offering a range of content types suitable to your students' needs. Test out a mixture of video content, quizzes, class discussions and text blocks to prevent content from feeling stagnant. Offering written steps alongside verbal instructions can help with understanding, particularly for students who have Auditory Processing Disorder (APD) or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).
Reflect on what content your students have struggled with and how it’s presented. For instance, they could be having difficulty working through text-heavy content. If so, consider using videos or microlearning to break the content into small concise topics. Microlearning can help explain new areas or dense topic materials, as only small sections are discussed. Whereas, if you have a 1-hour video, there are more opportunities to become disengaged, and it can make the important information harder to identify.
Encourage reflection
Reflection can help your students to understand themselves, recognise progress, support wellbeing and help self-regulation. Self-regulation is the ability of students to understand, manage and respond to the demands around them and their emotional reactions. By having this level of awareness, students can identify what works for their way of learning.
Students can use ePortfolios such as Mahara to:
- reflect
- keep journals
- track progress
- record their goals.
Additionally, ePortfolios can be used alongside LMS to demonstrate learning, evidence, and supporting material for assignments.
Enable your students to shape the direction of their learning
When students are involved in course design or shaping their learning experience, it can boost their engagement. In LMS such as Tōtara and Moodle, students can develop learning plans based on a competency framework. Learning plans can be tailored to each student and the order of courses can be flexible. In Tōtara, you can group courses into a program for each student. A program offers multiple learning pathways so students can choose which courses to complete to gain their competencies. For example, if five out of eight courses need to be completed, your students can choose the five courses they’d like to do.
Ensure your EdTech is accessible
Accessible EdTech means students can interact with the technology regardless of ability or circumstance. Basically, EdTech should remove barriers to education as it expands the options for consuming content.
Good EdTech content should be:
- compatible with assistive technologies
- able to meet WCAG guidelines
- reliable. Consider when you last updated your software and if you know what version you’re using. When working with older software like SCORM your course content can be harder to update and runs the risk of loading slowly.
Automate reminders
To help your students remember due dates and assignments, check what functionality your EdTech has. In LMS like Tōtara and Moodle, you can set up automatic email reminders for when assignment due dates are approaching. When combined with a single place where assignment information is stored, reminder emails can help support students with different time-tracking preferences.
Content development services to re-engage students online
Essentially, re-engaging students online is about fostering a sense of connection and ownership with their learning and then using EdTech to support their success. By ensuring your students have the tools and processes to see their progress and potential, you can test out EdTech strategies to maintain their engagement.
At Catalyst, our team of instructional designers create bespoke content for your students’ unique needs. We work to prevent disengagement before it can happen and deliver hassle-free future-proof solutions. Contact us today for your content development needs.