The Importance of Engaging Students in Online Learning (2024)

While most teachers will tell you that student engagement is extremely important in their classrooms, the term itself can feel a little nebulous. Student engagement may be defined as the level of interest students show towards the subject being taught and can be measured by their interaction with the content, instructor, and peers as well as their motivation to learn and progress through the course.

Experts further break student engagement into three distinct yet interrelated types: behavioral, emotional, and cognitive. Behavioral is the most obvious one and refers to basic participation tasks such as paying attention, asking questions, and following classroom rules. Emotional refers to how a student feels about school, their teachers, and their classmates. It ranges from positive feelings of happiness and belonging to negative thoughts like apathy and sadness. Cognitive is the student’s strategic investment in learning, such as whether they’re willing to try new study strategies or ask questions beyond the scope of the course.

Since each type of engagement is so closely linked to the other two, improving one is likely to enhance the others. For instance, a good rapport between teacher and student can help learners focus on lessons, improving their behavioral engagement. That strong relationship is also likely to help students think of school in a positive light (emotional) and attempt to push beyond any self-perceived limits in the classroom (cognitive).

Now that we’ve defined precisely what student engagement is, we can explore why engaging online students is so important. Engaged students see better learning outcomes including academic success, improved social-emotional well-being, and superior connections with their school and peers. At the same time, disengaged students see more negative outcomes such as cutting classes, dropping out, and even violence.

While many of these worst-case scenarios are more associated with high school students than their younger counterparts, disengagement at the elementary and middle school levels places students on a negative trajectory that can be difficult to overcome as they get older. Therefore, engaging pupils is necessary at all levels of education.

Of course, students aren’t the only beneficiaries of engaging education. Teachers report that their jobs are more fulfilling when they feel like they’re connecting with students and making an impact on their lives. This results in happier instructors who in turn are better able to engage their students, perpetuating the cycle.

In addition to the time you are together online, provide your students with your email address or phone number and “office hours,” or times they can get in contact with you outside classroom time. You can also use EchoPoll screen sharing to hold office hours. Instructors can create activities and provide instruction in various ways. Since every student has a unique learning style, this will help reach each student in a way that makes sense to them and help them engage with the content.

Finally, we give the instructor the chance to provide timely feedback. EchoExam provides excellent reporting capabilities so instructors can see down to the individual question where students are having trouble. Addressing these issues as soon as possible means the student can be on the right track long before it’s time for formal assessment, allowing instructors to offer help as necessary.

Students are as prone to procrastination and distraction as adults are, and it’s important to use various methods of motivation to help them overcome these pitfalls. To start, consider breaking complex content into smaller pieces that are easier for the student to digest. Use EchoPoll’s presentation tools to organize information in a logical way and group content that’s related conceptually. When designing video presentations, make sure they are no longer than 5-7 minutes each so students can absorb all the information without feeling overwhelmed.

It’s also important to send reminders to students. On EchoPoll, you can see which students haven’t interacted with which lessons and you can use our tools to send them reminders to complete the instruction. Finally, use a variety of multimedia and modalities. EchoPoll provides many tools including embedded assessment, whiteboarding, and more to improve the learning experience for your students.

Watching video is a standard aspect of education, but some students put their head down as soon as the instructor clicks play. EchoVideo both makes it easier for instructors to add videos to a course and helps students get more out of video content. You can add videos to your library by uploading them from a source such as YouTube and other websites or taking advantage of Universal Capture functionality to record fresh content. All uploaded video is accessible on an intuitive dashboard, allowing instructors to add them to multiple courses.

EchoVideo also leverages Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology to caption and transcribe video content, giving students and instructors more accessibility and flexibility when it comes to visual content. Transcription makes video content as searchable as content on Google and other search engines. Video becomes much more engaging when the user can access the material they want on their terms.

Test scores motivate many students who are pursuing an education, but online learning may raise questions about which class content will be most important on an assessment. EchoExam includes a free question bank with thousands of questions aligned to Common Core standards and sourced from leading publishers, allowing instructors to make study guides and homework assignments out of the same items as exams. Echo360 has also partnered with more than 65 academic publishers to offer specific support for over 12,000 textbook titles, allowing every instructor to find exactly what they need.

Of course, the teacher can write their own items as their preferences might dictate as well. EchoExam offers support for nearly every type of question imaginable, including multiple-choice, numeric response, essay questions, short answer items, and matching. Bimodal functionality even adjusts the difficulty of an item on the fly by converting it from multiple-choice to short answer and back again.

Online student engagement is critical, but that doesn’t mean that teaching online is simple. We are big believers that our e³ philosophy is the secret to an active, engaging online course, so let’s take a closer look at how each of its three underlying principles (equity, evidence, and engagement) help students thrive.

Equity means that all students enjoy equal access to the material regardless of any special needs, learning differences, or sensory impairments. Echo360 meets or exceeds all WCAG 2.0 standards, so equitable instruction is never an issue with our online platform. EchoExam also ensures fair exams by allowing educators to generate up to 26 different versions of a test automatically, ensuring equal opportunity in education while mitigating any temptation to cheat.

Evidence means that instructors have access to hard data demonstrating each student’s performance and command of the lessons provided. The teacher will always know when a student is struggling or tuning out the material because they will receive reports on student progress individually and by group. Similarly, PointSolutions tracks how engaged students are and sends scores to teachers who can then adapt their course accordingly. If students understand a concept more quickly than initially anticipated, their academic mentor can move on before the class loses focus.

Echo360’s robust suite of engagement tools can outperform more traditional settings if the right supports are in place. We invite you to learn more about what Echo360 can do for your online student engagement today. We promise that doing so will be worth your time!

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