AbroadEd could confirm that online learning programs have continued to grow in popularity among students in higher education institutions. These students prefer to enroll in online education because of several reasons, including:
- The asynchronous curriculum of online classes;
- Ease-to-follow program structure of online classes; and
- Up-to-date content of most online courses.
According to AbroadEd, students do not enroll in online courses because of sophisticated features such as virtual reality, simulations, or visual content. They neither rank peer-to-peer learning, networking, and non-academic support as important.
How can online courses facilitate student success?
According to a recent survey from McKinsey & Company, about 65 percent of students want part of their learning experience to take place online. Two-thirds of these students desire to have recorded class sessions and online study materials included in their online learning programs.
While many students want to enroll in online courses, many of them believe online programs need to be more engaging. AbroadEd could also establish that many students say online programs bored them, and they easily get distracted from their learning curriculum.
So, to facilitate student success with online courses, online classes need to be structured in ways that are more engaging for students, with easy access to professors and opportunities to interact with peers.
AbroadEd highlights two things to design engaging online courses for students:
- Use data to audit important metrics such as retention, completion and employment post-graduation.
- Don’t include features because they are sophisticated, but rather because they will facilitate student success.
