How To Make Online Training More Engaging

Online training has become a pivotal part of modern education and professional development. However, keeping participants engaged throughout the process is often a challenge. Boring content and passive learning experiences can lead to disinterest and low retention rates.

The difference between an effective and failed online course is the level of engagement you receive from your audience. Missing the mark means more time spent revising your course until you get it right—which can waste time and resources.

The best way to guarantee an increase is understanding how to make online courses more interactive. By leveraging knowledge checks, adding interactive content, and sharing an online course in the flow of work, you can massively increase your learner engagement. Below are tips on how to add each into your online courses, straight from our experts.

Drive engagement using quizzes

Traditional quizzes are often seen as boring, disruptive, and sometimes even counterproductive in their original purpose. However, when appropriately used, quizzes can steadily increase knowledge retention substantially and build learner engagement.

Online training platforms leverage quizzes as a way to provide learners with assessment opportunities to check their memory. The American Academy of Neurology found that the repeated quizzing of information increases knowledge retention by nearly 20%! That means less time having to deliver follow-up online courses to repeat the same topic.

To add quizzes to your online course, simply go to the quiz section of your online course creation software.

Select a quiz that requires equal parts testing of the information you delivered and an interactive way to enter it (i.e. fill the in the blank, multiple-choice, true or false, matching answers, etc.). We recommend quizzing periodically in your online courses to increase knowledge retention. If your course is built around a few different steps, consider adding a quiz halfway and at the end. This can break up the content as well as build knowledge checks into the learning process.

Spark interest with interactive content

Online course creation software has come a long way in the past decade. A report from ATD found that for 1hr of online course content it takes approx. 142hrs for a level 4 course (interactive or real-time training). Now? You can make an online course more interactive in minutes.

When sharing information that’s engaging, you can think completely outside the box to get the best possible results. Is the online course you want to share in a presentation-style format? Use an online course template that leverages clickable sections.

Want to share a narrative-style set of content? Use an online course template that features navigation between pieces of information. Learners can click, scroll, or tap from one step to the next, letting them interact with the content directly.

Lastly, try giving learners a chance to discover the right information with an online course template that features challenges. Images with a mistake or matching words or images with the correct topic can engage learners in a different way than statically sharing knowledge.

Try to also go through the content as you build it. If you experience what your audience will go through in an online course, it can help you shape the structure. And we’re all about the learner first approach to delivering online courses.

Learning in the flow of work

Understanding how to make online courses more interactive for business formats means providing on-the-job training in-the-flow of work.

Traditional training methods used to keep the standard of separating knowledge sharing from work. Being able to share knowledge where employees engaged most (ie. Slack, HubSpot, Zoom, etc.) never quite worked. But these platforms are exactly the right place to deliver an online course in-the-flow of work.

Why is this method of sharing knowledge becoming so popular? According to this article by the Havard Business Review, the reasoning is that if your employees are often working in a SaaS platform regularly, they tend to engage more with information shared here. The ability to complete training inside other platforms also standardizes how training can be fulfilled in a workday. Learners can pursue learning they believe to be beneficial to their role, allowing for autonomous learning.

So how do you leverage online course creation software to share content in the flow of work? By grabbing enrollment links and dropping them in whatever platforms your employees engage within their workday.

What makes online course enrollment links so easy to use is the ability to share courses anywhere and enable learners to self-enroll. This removes manual processes for you and helps build engagement by sharing content in a space your employees frequent, increasing engagement.

Ready to elevate your online courses?

These are three proven methods that help you understand how to make online courses more interactive. By implementing the strategies, you can transform your online training from a passive experience into an engaging and impactful learning journey. Whether you're an educator, a corporate trainer, or anyone involved in online education, remember that engaging training not only benefits your learners but also contributes to your own success as a trainer or organization.

For even more online course creation ideas or unique cases to suit your team, check out our free library of pre-built course templates today!