One of the key goals of any Instructional Designer, educator or SME of an online course, is to engage learners into the course and help them successfully achieve the learning objectives. They take quite a few efforts towards achieving this goal. However, do those efforts convert into a comprehensive success? Well, not always.
To know why, we need to look at online learning experiences from learners’ perspective. Based on my experience, I have observed some common issues faced by online learners globally that disrupt their learning process. Here are some top common problems:
1 Absence of meaningful interactivity that disengages the learners’ participation
2 Usage of flat PPT simply converted into an online course without giving the content the right treatment to make it online-friendly
3 Continuous reading out of text by the voiceover without any action on the screen which makes it boring for learners
4 Lack of assessments and exercises that let learners apply knowledge gained in challenging and varied ways
5 Absence of feedback mechanism for mapping learner performance
6 Use of irrelevant content which has no real life implications or no connection with the learning objectives
7 Increase in cognitive load due to –
- Longer course duration
- Too many topics covered in one module
- Improper use of audio-visual elements
- Poor and irrelevant graphics/sound
- No reference or additional guidance during difficult course topics
- Too many topics covered in one module
- Improper use of audio-visual elements
- Poor and irrelevant graphics/sound
- No reference or additional guidance during difficult course topics
8 Complex navigation of the course
9 Insufficient or unclear user instructions which worsen course exploration
10 Absence of support and offline learning
Despite these, online/eLearning courses are quite popular among learners because of flexibility and various other benefits they offer. Addressing the above mentioned issues while designing, developing and deploying an online/eLearning course would greatly help Instructional Designers and online educators in making it a success.
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