Elearning courses evolve over time. There is no question about that. As technology changes, the potential for growth and improvement of this method of learning will also happen. Not only should you be concerned about technology, you should also realize that students also evolve. As everything around us changes, society begins to adapt too. You see students develop habits and preference for things that were unknown to their parents and grandparents when they were of the same age.
This is why you need to start thinking about personalized elearning courses. It is simply having custom fitted learning courses that will give students the best experience, and hopefully the best result as they get their education.
A personalized learning experience is great because of three things.
It will cater to the specific needs of the student.
We are not just talking about the specific needs of the current students as compared to their parents or grandparents. We are also talking about the different needs of the students of the same generation. There are some who can quickly catch up while others will need more guidance and focus. It is nice to know how you can personalize your course to successfully educate all the students – regardless of their specific learning needs.
It will address the problems and difficulties that students had in the past.
Another reason why a personalized elearning course is beneficial is because it will help instructors address the problems and difficulties that students encountered in the past. If a specific group of students who are known to be quite slow in understanding a part of the lesson, the future courses should be created in such a way that will keep that from happening again. The course can lead them to a different set of games, assessments and discussions – all to help them get the lesson a lot easier.
It will identify the features that will hook the student to the course.
Lastly, personalizing your future elearning course will encourage you to identify the features that will hook the students to the lesson. When you personalize a course, you will be focusing on what makes the learning process easier for the learners. In most cases, that involves the use of tools and features that are interesting to the learners. This will help hook them to the lesson and that will boost participation. When participation is high, then you know that the learning process will be more efficient.
These three should be enough reason for you to think about how you can make your elearning course more personalized.
Here are some tips to help you transform your future courses into a more personalized learning experience.
- Use a tracking and monitoring tool on all your existing courses. For all the courses that are already in place, you need to take a look at the tracking and monitoring tools. Observe how the students are progressing in your course. If there is one area that most of your students are having difficulty with, you may want to think about how you can revise that part to make it easier.
- Make your assessments more than just a review of the lesson. Obviously, your assessment will focus on what the students learned from the course. However, this is also a chance for you to get a glimpse of how your objectives were met. If they were not met, you can use this assessment to analyze how it was missed in this course.
- Create a feedback or survey form. This is a straightforward way to get the data that you need to make your course more personalized. You can simply ask the students what they think of the course. Make it as detailed as possible and ask the students to explain their answers.
What you will try to create here are sources of data that you can use to forecast how you will improve the learning experience of your students. It can be for the same batch of students – in case the elearning course requires a follow up lesson. It can also be for a new batch of students.
There are various tools that will help you create adaptive courses that will cater to the needs of the students based on their current progress. This will help one course cater to the needs of various students – regardless of their learning capabilities.
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