Engaging Students in an Online Environment:
Strategies for LMS Success

05 Dec 2023

‘’It is not as efficient and productive as in-person traditional classes’’ relates to the perception of many people due to the digital setting of education delivery. Besides, the undeniable truth is that online learning lacks face-to-face interaction.

Nonetheless, e-learning has evolved into a major standard of teaching and learning because it provides multiple avenues for skill and knowledge acquisition. However, regardless of the platform (online or offline), teachers cannot guarantee effective learning without student engagement.

That is where tools like the LMS software can help you carry out various well-thought-out strategies to improve students’ learning habits. Hence, it is only fitting to look at some of the strategies for LMS success.

Strategies for LMS Successs

1. Cooperative Collaborative Learning

One of the common complaints that parents and people in general point out is the lack of camaraderie or social learning opportunities in online learning. But contrary to such misconceptions, it provides a platform to conduct various group learning activities.

For instance, you can conduct collaborative activities both within and outside the classroom sessions. However, it is crucial to remember that the primary goal of this approach is to help students learn social skills; hence, establishing some ground rules is important.

Some useful group activities are as follows:

Discussion forums

You can integrate collaboration tools with the LMS and facilitate interactive discussions among learners regarding subject topics and world issues. Also, teachers can conduct online class discussions and help them initiate conversations through an interactive messaging interface.

Students can ask questions and queries and post comments.

Group projects and assignments

You can divide the class into groups of four or three and assign them particular topics. Each group member will contribute equally and complete the project within the given time.

This will make online learning participatory, synergistic, and cooperative; by the end of the project, students will develop better teamwork and communication skills.

2. Adaptive Learning

Why would a student pay attention if their concerns and issues do not receive any importance or response? This is a vital question that educators need to address in the context of students' academic and overall performance.

Most of the time, students are at the receiving end of criticism due to their apparent lack of seriousness or interest. However, seldom do we emphasize underlying causes; that is where you can implement adaptive learning.

It is a student-centric approach that allows teachers to personalise learning according to the needs of the students.

The learning management system helps to administer the strategy conveniently in the following ways:

• Identify the shortcomings and weak areas of individual students and develop appropriate learning plans to help overcome them.
• Identify and foster learners' strengths, which contribute to their learning outcomes.

3. Interactive Assessments

Examinations are the most hated and feared aspects of academics, especially due to the high stakes associated with them. Moreover, the conventional examination system, for the longest time, focused on assessing subject knowledge.

In contrast, conducting interactive assessments can help you identify learning gaps, knowledge levels, and individual abilities. For example, you can conduct entry and exit polls, allowing you to assess prior and after-lesson knowledge.

On the other hand, impromptu quizzes can help you track whether students understand the lesson. Also, it helps track their ongoing progress, and students can retain information for longer.

It is a unique way for students to analyse their understanding of the teaching material. Teachers can provide additional support in terms of personalised instruction based on the assessment performance.

4. Flipped Classroom Sessions

In most conventional classroom cases, you might have noticed that teachers spent the maximum amount of time on instructional activities. Therefore, this leaves a limited amount of time for students and teachers to interact.

A strategic teaching approach is the flipped classroom system, wherein students learn the course material outside the class. Then, the teacher and students utilise the class time for discussions and query resolution.

The flipped classroom sessions can get into disarray and confusion without proper planning; hence, you can implement the following steps:

• Identify key concepts and provide clear and concise learning outcomes.
• Develop an implementation strategy wherein you plan particular activities and home tasks.
• Define and establish the format of pre-classroom activities that must be linked to remembering and understanding.
• Establish the connection between the topics and post-class activities and assessments.
• Evaluate the flipped classroom structure by monitoring the level of students' completion of tasks and individual participation.

5. Gamification

We all love games, especially students who love spending time on their gadgets (laptops and smartphones) playing various kinds of games. But more often than not, the gaming sessions become longer, affecting their education.

Mitigative and preventative strategies to resolve the issue and engage them in innovative learning methods are the need of the hour. For instance, gamification is an excellent way of including game-centric learning materials.

You can incorporate gaming elements like badges, leaderboards, and other game elements into the e-learning structure. Hence, if a student completes a particular assignment or task, they get the badge and rise higher in the leaderboard.

As a result, it motivates the students to learn and keeps them on track to progress.

6. Monitoring and evaluating learning outcomes

Did the student make any improvements? What is the average participation rate of all the students? Which students continue to face difficulties?

You must address the above questions to ensure each student gets enough representation and a fair chance to overcome their issues. That is where you can use the data analytics of the learning management system, helping to get accurate data.

You can obtain in-depth analytical reports on students’ academic performance, rate of participation, attendance reports, and assignment submission details. Consequently, it helps to monitor and evaluate the learning outcomes.

7. Personalised Feedback

While dealing with a classroom full of students, it can be challenging to divide your attention among each of them individually. However, you can do so with the help of the LMS; the tool assists teachers in providing personalized feedback.

Furthermore, you can use varied features like screen recording, notes, voice comments, etc. to highlight the student’s activities. You can also carry out the following steps:

• Schedule one-to-one virtual meetings, allowing students and teachers to discuss progress and specific issues.
• Provide specific suggestions according to the knowledge and understanding levels of each student.
• It will help to create a flexible and supportive learning environment.