When you release your e-learning course out into the real world, it’s easy to think that the creative part of it is over with. The reality is, you should always be tweaking, and curating your course depending on the needs and expectations of your audience.
It can be difficult to figure out exactly what needs to be changed, but there are a few indicators that you should look at as a red flag.
The team at Archy Learning has not only built a fantastic e-learning platform, but we are all about helping you not only create online courses easily.
Let’s go over the 4 main indicators that can tell you that your online course needs improvement.
1. Low Completion Rates
2. Poor Learner Engagement
3. Negative Feedback
4. Lack of progress
1) Low completion rates
Low completion rates are one of the most obvious indicators of poor course content. It could also mean the e-learning content is too long, and you should look at breaking it down into more bite-sized portions, or micro-content. Either way, Archy Learning has various data and analytics on the e-learning platform that can show you a clear overview of how your learners are progressing.
Low completion rates can mean a few things:
- With too much industry jargon, students can’t follow along
- Too much text, not enough visuals
- Lack of interaction
- No progress visuals for students to know how far along they are
- Content is too long
As the admin, you should look over all of these, and ensure that none of them are taking place during your online course. If they are be sure to change them and simplify your content, use gamification elements, and break up your texts and videos. In return, your completion rates are sure to rise.
2) Poor learner engagement
Though they can be easily confused, completion rates and engagement rates are two different factors that need to be monitored throughout your mobile e-learning course. The way to measure engagement levels is to look at if your learners are asking questions, achieving their learning objectives, participating in online learning and forum discussions, and so on.
If all you’re seeing is completed courses, but students are not reaching out, commenting, and asking questions, take these as warning signs and ask your learners questions or change up the content. Your students might simply need some encouragement from you to continue! We recommend you begin by first asking, and going from there.
3) Negative feedback
Asking for feedback is probably the most critical, yet difficult thing to ask for. You’ve spent weeks if not months researching your course content, put it out there, marketing, and monitoring your students. To have students come back possibly with negative feedback might seem disheartening, but your mindset needs to shift on this!
Feedback is always an opportunity for growth. Be grateful that your students are being honest about their decisions, and if it is feedback worth implementing, then we recommend you change or tweak the content accordingly.
You can ask for feedback using questions, polls, and surveys. Platforms such as SurveyMonkey allow you to collect feedback under one general account. You can even reward your students for taking the time to talk about their experiences.
Then from a marketing standpoint, having great feedback is a great content and marketing opportunity. You can post encouraging and positive feedback reviews across your social media channels, to encourage tentative students who are on the fence about your course in committing to signing up. Word of mouth, after all, is one of the most effective forms of marketing.
In summary, reviews are important and should always be taken seriously and into consideration.
Reviews also affect potential learners, as they read through reviews before purchasing. This could affect your sales in the long run, so make sure you are listening, responding, and tweaking accordingly.
4) Lack of progress
Learning is all about progress, and we should always aim to upskill and learn new things.
Whether it is learning how to use new software, code, or teach a new language, you should be able to see how your students are progressing throughout the e-learning journey. Since learning and progress do take time, make sure to implement repetition to make it more effective and help the students retain the information better.
If your e-learning course is for your sales employees, and the content isn’t causing a change in their performance or behavior in the workplace, it is time to review the material, ask for feedback, and see what you can do better.
How to Improve your e-Learning Experience
Now that you’ve looked over your e-Learning strategy and identified the areas in need of improving it’s time to implement the necessary changes. In response to your feedback and the data that has been provided, look at replacing things such as video content (or cutting it down into shorter videos), inserting more engagement strategies such as mini-games, leaderboards, and gamification in general. Monitor your engagement levels and ask our students why they are not completing courses, or what you can do better.
Keep in mind that although perfection isn’t something to strive for necessarily, it is about providing value to your online learners, and encouraging them on their e-learning pathway, make changes along the way, and remember to listen!
With these steps, you are sure to create an effective and memorable online training program. You can start by using Archy Learning’s e-learning platform for free today.
