Problems With Online Learning and How to Solve Them
Recent years have been very eye-opening for many as online education is put to the test against very real challenges. During this time, plenty of contribution has helped online education to evolve and be a more acceptable medium of education.
Of course, there are still some common issues that prevent people from taking the plunge into the eLearning industry but what you may not know is that they can be easily overcome with the right LMS tool. In this article, we’ll be taking you through the most common problems with online learning and how to solve them easily.
Problems With Online Learning
Below is a list of problems with online learning and how you can solve them using Tutor LMS, a WordPress LMS plugin.
Poor Student-Teacher Communication
The most glaring difference between offline and online learning is the quality of student-teacher communication. Connecting in a virtual setting is much more difficult for both students and teachers and this is especially true for pre-filmed courses.
An easy remedy to this problem is Live Sessions and luckily, integrating this feature into your course has never been easier than with Tutor LMS’ Zoom Integration add-on. With this, you’ll be able to schedule, create, and manage live meetings right from your LMS dashboard.
Tutor LMS also provides the option to integrate with Google Classroom, so you can totally do live sessions on Google Meet instead and get the best of both platforms.
Lastly, you can also use Tutor LMS’ amazing Q&A feature to further boost communication. This tool gives the students a common space to ask their queries and instructors will also find it easier to address and manage them when they’re all in one place.
Social Isolation
Another major drawback of eLearning is social isolation. Unlike offline schooling, students get fewer opportunities to interact with their peers. Not only is peer interaction an essential part of education, but human communication, in general, is a very important aspect of life and its lack can negatively affect students’ mental health.
As mentioned above, live classes greatly improve the communication quality as a whole, and group activities can encourage student interaction even further. The social media plugin BuddyPress paired with its integration add-on from Tutor LMS works great for this as it can help you incorporate social elements like User Groups, Private Messaging, Activity Streams, and more.
Low Self-Motivation & Time Management Skills
In an offline setting, elements like strict schedules, instructor supervision, and peer motivation help encourage students to do well in their studies. With these elements out of the picture, staying motivated to continue online courses can be very challenging, especially in the case of self-paced courses.
What students need is an incentive and what better way to do that than incorporating Gamification elements into your course? Points and rankings are a great way to urge students and you can implement them effortlessly using a plugin like GamiPress in conjunction with Tutor LMS.
Other handy features of Tutor LMS include:
- Email Notifications: Used to send off emails when a new lesson, quiz, or assignment is published.
- Content Drip: Release lessons based on a precondition. Can be used to enforce a strict schedule, prevent lessons from being skipped, or stop the lesson sequence from being altered.
- Calendar: Marks off upcoming assignment deadlines.
These tools help students stay on track without losing the end goal. Of course, features we previously discussed like Zoom and BuddyPress Integration can also help motivate students further.
Cheating During Assessments
Another problem with online learning is having to deal with students cheating during an online assessment. Without in-person observation, it’s difficult to prevent students from using unethical means to pass their tests.
Live Classes (with student video feeds enabled) can help prevent this especially if used alongside some advanced quiz options that come with Tutor LMS. These options include:
- Randomize Quiz Order: Displays the questions in random order which makes it harder for students to discuss questions with their peers.
- Pagination: Enabling Pagination from the Question Layout option displays a single question on a page at a time. Students won’t be able to see all of the questions at a glance, making cheating more difficult.
- Max No. of Questions Allowed to Answer: This allows you to specify the no. of questions students can answer. Suppose you create 30 questions for a quiz but only allow 20. The system will then randomly pick any 20 questions for a student to answer which means that not everyone will have the same question pattern. Thus, minimizing the chances of fraudulent testing.
- Timer: Setting a time limit can further hinder students from using unhanded means and wasting time.
Difficult for Students to Give Feedback
Student feedback is an important part of any education as it lets you know their thoughts and any issues they’re facing. With the help of this information, you can work towards finetuning courses for a better experience. Naturally, it is easy for students to communicate any issues they’re facing with their teachers during in-person classes but the same cannot be said for online education.
This is where Reviews and Star Ratings come in. This feature is a staple for many websites and tools, including Tutor LMS. You’re most likely already familiar with the concept but in short, this feature allows students to give their feedback and rating for any course they’ve enrolled in.
Another cool thing you can do is create a Questionnaire Survey using the Quiz feature. Simply create a quiz how you usually would and just not assign it any marks. And, while it won’t be anonymous, it may be a good thing as you can identify who is facing what issue and provide solutions accordingly.
Lack of Credibility
One of the major reasons why people hesitate to take a course online is the lack of credibility. No one wants to take a course and work hard to gain a new skill only for it to not count for anything on their resumes.
A great way to overcome this issue is to provide certificates. Certificates give students a sense of accomplishment upon completing a course and are also the best way to prove their skills on resumes.
With the Certificate add-on of Tutor LMS, you have a selection of templates to choose from however, you can also give your students completely unique certificates using the custom Certificate Builder of Tutor LMS.
User Inexperience
Students online can be very diverse in age, occupation, and more. Many often are unfamiliar with tech and tend to face a lot of problems in a virtual environment. In order to make their experience better, Tutor LMS comes with a minimal and uniform design that is not only pleasing to the eye but also easy to navigate.
If paired with a brief guideline or an FAQ page on your eLearning site, you can definitely ensure an amazing student experience.
Reach New Heights With Tutor LMS
Every new innovation comes with its own hurdles just like the eLearning industry. However, there’s no denying that this sector is improving by leaps and bounds every single day. In this article, we addressed some of the most common issues with online learning and how you can overcome them using Tutor LMS and its nifty features.
We hope you found this article helpful. If you have any other issues or suggestions feel free to comment below. Till then, Adios!
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