Hello Friends!
Greetings from Barcelona☀️. Many thanks for your feedback on the last edition of The Quest. A special shout out to the following people: Mark in Hong Kong, Romy in Stuttgart, Maria in Miami, Stef in London, and Connie in Toronto 🙌.
If you are joining The Quest for the first time, welcome to our weekly exploration of creativity, facilitation, and learning. You can catch up on past editions here.
🤯 Can you believe it?
It’s been a year since billions of teachers, students, conference-goers, workshop junkies, and creators around the globe embarked on an unexpected massive online learning experiment.
This experiment has exposed the deep flaws in education and opened new frontiers in learning. One thing that this experiment has taught us is that engagement matters.
So how can we boost engagement in online learning?
That’s our Quest for this week.
In this edition🔎
3 lessons I’ve learned about boosting engagement
Why online engagement matters
Closing the engagement gap
Tools for boosting engagement
Let’s dive right in.
🧪3 lessons from the online learning experiment
Like a lot of facilitators and teachers I know, I have spent the better part of the past year immersing myself in online learning. I’ve poured through toolkits. I’ve shared experiences with my peers. I’ve taken online courses. But the real learning has come in working with teachers to create engaging online experiences.
Like with this awesome group of educators who are part of the University of Barcelona’s Emotional Education and Well Being postgraduate program (see photo below👇). What have I learned?
What works in person doesn’t work online. Online learning needs to be designed for online.
Human interaction is key to learning. Online learning can be just as creative, interactive, and deep as in-person learning. Sometimes even more.
Experimentation fuels improvement. Our understanding of online learning has taken a giant leap over the past year. There is a lot still to learn.
One year on, what have you learned about engaging online learning? I’d love to know. Leave a comment below or hit reply to this message.
💡Online Engagement Matters
A study from the University of North Carolina and the University of Wyoming on students’ perceptions of engagement in online learning. The most amazing thing about this study is that it was published in 2018 – two full years before the pandemic!
Here are a few of the highlights:
When students are engaged online, they learn more.
Students benefit from icebreakers and opportunities to connect with each other
Engagement reduces the sense of isolation and increases student motivation
Read the full study here.
🤔Closing the Engagement Gap
We know that online engagement matters. And yet there is still a glaring gap when it comes to putting what we know into practice. Each year, Inside Higher Ed does a survey of faculty attitudes on online education.
One of the key findings from this past year?
By far the biggest complaint from students and faculty members alike about the remote learning that most experienced last spring was the lack of engagement and interactivity between students and instructors and among students themselves.
Read the full survey here.
🏝️Hyper Island Toolbox
Our desire for engagement and interactivity during COVID has fueled a boom in free online toolkits. We now have access to thousands of techniques, games, and activities at our fingertips. Big thanks to Mark Cheng for sending over the Hyper Island Toolbox.
Here are a few activities that caught my eye:
Thanks for reading The Quest. I always love hearing your feedback and suggestions. Visit my website for ways we can work together here.
If you are enjoying The Quest, I’d appreciate it if you shared it with anyone you think might like it.
Until next week!
P.S. If you were forwarded this email, you can subscribe to The Quest here:
