Common eLearning Challenges And How To Overcome Them

2 men and a laptop with Learn textBefore you design your eLearning course, you may want to find out the common challenges that professional instructors usually face. An eLearning course is different from the traditional way of learning and the challenges vary as well. If you want to make your course successful, then you may want to consider these challenges and how you can overcome them. These challenges are oftentimes applicable regardless if your learners include students or employer/employees in the corporate world.

  • Short attention span of learners. With our reliance on the Internet, we have developed quite a short attention span. If something does not catch our attention in the first few minutes, we quickly go on to another source of information. Your course will have to contend with this problem – especially with learners coming from the corporate world. This is easily solved by making sure that your course is not too long and in manageable servings. Also, if you know that your learners are busy with work, why not make your course asynchronous so they can study at their own pace.
  • Motivating the learners. First of all, you want to make sure that you can motivate your learners while taking your course. If your learners consist of students, you have to stimulate their interest because young minds tend to get bored easily. If your learners are from the corporate world, you have to take their attention away from their work so they can concentrate on the lesson. To get past this challenge, you should make your course both inspiring and engaging so your learners can immerse themselves in it. Using games and relatable scenarios should help keep them interested in the eLearning course. It is important that your learners understand how the course can help them in real life. Being able to relate it to real life situations will get them motivated to complete the course.
  • Lack of tech knowledge. You should also expect that a lot of your learners are probably not tech savvy – unless your course has a prerequisite technological knowledge. But, if your course is not about technology, then assume that your learners are not tech savvy. This means you should create your eLearning course and make them available across a lot of platforms. That way, learners can access your course in any platform or program that they are comfortable and familiar with.
  • General reputation of eLearning courses not being supportive. Some learners are turned off by eLearning courses because they think that it is hard for them to get help while in the midst of the course. Make sure that your learners are aware of how to reach you to give feedback and ask questions. At the very least, give them the means to answer their own questions. A simple FAQ can help out. Setting up a community forum where learners can discuss amongst themselves is also a great idea.

Make sure you consider these challenges as you are creating your eLearning course. That way, you can meet your course goals and get more learners to become interested in your other courses.

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