Let's focus on relevance and engagement

 

I’ve been taking a look at some online course evaluations recently and have been really happy to see high ratings in overall course navigation and learners’ confidence in being able to learn the content and know where to get help if needed. These are all things we’ve worked on together for a long time, so it’s cause to celebrate!

AND… it’s time to take the next step.

Courses have scored a bit lower around engagement and gaining and keeping learners’ attention. 

Let’s put a new focus on being relevant and engaging for our learners.

How can we support learner engagement by making our courses relevant to learners?

One key strategy is to offer a variety of ways to learn. 

A course should include a variety of mediums, such as

• text,
• video,
• audio,
• images, and 
• maps. 

Content can be made more relevant by including nuggets of specificity, such as drop-downs related to

• regions, 
• plants,
• life-stages, and/or
• seasons, etc. 

A course should also offer a variety of approaches to explaining the information with

• surprising/fun facts,
• inspiring stories,
• appropriate humor,
• practical tips, and
• local impacts/news.

Another key, if you're willing to go deeper, is to ASK your potential audience (current “outsiders”): 

What says “welcome”? What says “keep out” to you?

Nina Simon is a brilliant practitioner and speaker on relevance. Take a look at this clip to hear from her on the topic directly. (Note: the video starts in the middle to save time and get to the key message, but the whole thing is great!)

Are any of these opportunities feeling relevant to you? Sometimes a big change is called for, but often we can make a sizable impact with a few small tweaks. I'd love to hear your plans for making your courses more engaging and if there's anything I can do to help! Share your thoughts in the comments below or reach out to us directly.