How easy would it be to turn off your camera during your lecture and do something else? If you say, “Very easy,” welcome to one of the biggest problems in online learning. Many learners find it challenging to stay focused and engaged in virtual classrooms, often missing key information and losing all interest in the subject matter. So, what do academic institutions do to make online learning more engaging? There’s several techniques, and one solution that’s gaining traction is working with academic transcription companies.
So, let’s discuss the different strategies, how transcription can help, and why human transcription is your best option.
- Interactive elements are crucial for online learning engagement. It helps keep students actively participating rather than passively watching like a spectator.
- Students are 2.5 times more likely to earn excellent grades when engaged, highlighting the importance of strategies that maintain their attention in virtual classrooms.
- Lecture transcripts can significantly improve online learning by making content searchable and accessible. Students can quickly review specific concepts without scrolling through videos.
Importance of Engagement in Online Learning
Nothing compares to traditional classrooms when it comes to naturally fostering interactions. However, an online classroom environment is different. It requires engagement strategies above and beyond the ones used in physical classrooms to prevent students from turning into digital zombies, staring at their screens.
According to statistics, engaged students are 2.5 times more likely to earn excellent grades and 4.5 times more likely to feel hopeful about their future. That says a lot about the importance of making online learning more engaging.
Beyond academic numbers, meaningful engagement during online teaching is crucial for developing digital literacy and helps maintain mental alertness during extensive sessions. Simple tactics, like breakout discussions, can help push students to become participants rather than mere spectators, which is often a challenge for many.
What Constitutes Engagement In An Online Learning Context
There’s a lot of factors that make up an engaging online education environment for students. For now, below are some of the most notable ones.
| Engagement Element | Description/Impact |
| Active Participation | Instead of listening quietly, students can apply active learning by speaking up, asking questions, or sharing their thoughts. |
| Time on Task | Time spent actually working with the lessons and doing activities, not just skimming through them. |
| Peer Interaction | Students work together often by doing group work or giving feedback to each other. |
| Content Creation | Students create their own work, like online course projects or trainings, to show what they’ve learned. |
| Real-time Engagement | Students join in during online classes in real time. They vote in polls, chat, or raise their hands. |
| Self-reflection | Learners can keep track of what they’ve learned by writing down their progress. |
Ways To Make Virtual Classrooms More Engaging
For educators facing the same dilemma, below are some techniques you can apply to make online learning more engaging.
Do Interactive Knowledge Checks Beyond the Basic Quiz
The truth is that online learning requires more than the old and boring multiple-choice quizzes. Instead, lecturers should apply interactive knowledge checks to keep students engaged. It can be as simple as a scenario-based challenge where they can apply what they’ve learned to solve real problems.
A marketing student, for example, might analyze a failed product launch and propose solutions. Doing so creates breaks for students to assess their understanding and help sharpen their critical thinking.
Knowledge checks are pretty much a concept application that adapts to student responses. Lecturers can also provide immediate feedback to students as they can easily identify knowledge gaps.
And hey, every student in your session will be forced to pay attention, knowing they’ll have their fair share of knowledge checks.
Create Breakout Rooms for Collaboration or Strategy
Digital breakout rooms are most effective when designed with clear objectives. So, instead of random groupings, each participant should have a specific role, like investigator or facilitator – it’ll make everyone an active contributor to the discussion.
Suppose your lecture is about climate policy; different breakout rooms represent environmental scientists, economic advisors, etc., so the students can have diverse perspectives on the same issue.
You can create structured prompts or time checkpoints to keep the discussion productive. It helps eliminate the awkward silences shared in virtual group work. Breakout rooms also help students build collaboration skills and connections with fellow learners.
Gamify Your Learning Management System
Learning management systems can be gamified, and it’s a surefire way to convert boring online classes into an engaging quest. This might work particularly well with educators or students who are fond of quest-based video games.
With this approach, students can earn achievements or points for completing academic tasks and helping their peers learn. For instance, if a student managed to explain a highly complicated concept in your discussion space, they might earn something like a “Knowledge Sage” badge or something like that – anything that screams “achievement.”. However, you need to ensure that, rather than focusing on competition, the learning system rewards collaboration.
Implement Student-Led Content Creation
Online learning is shifting from passive content consumption to active content creation, and you shouldn’t be left behind. Give your students content creation tasks (educational content, of course). Doing so helps deepen their understanding while sharing their own perspective with peers.
For example, try giving your chemistry students a task to create an animation about molecular bonding or something similar. Not only will it showcase their knowledge, but it will also be a valuable resource for other students. However, letting them explain a concept through their preferred method is essential for their eventual growth.
Make Online Learning More Engaging Through Transcripts
Online lectures must be recorded for students to review; transcripts can significantly improve how students utilize these recordings. You’re essentially turning long videos into knowledge repositories that can be searched easily. Learners can directly jump to the specific concepts without the painful process of video scrubbing.
Suppose a student needs to review a specific timeline where Renaissance art is discussed. They can quickly search the transcripts within your shared folder (or wherever you saved it) and find relevant discussions.
You can also include timestamps in the transcripts. It also makes it easier to digest complicated sections into manageable chunks. However, the real beauty of academic transcripts is their flexibility. They can be used in different learning styles while making content accessible to many.
What’s The Best Transcription Service To Increase Online Learning Engagement?
Transcription can be a powerful tool for teachers to help improve their students’ academic achievements. However, different providers offer transcription for educational institutions. Let’s talk about the two most common types you’ll find in the market.
AI Transcription
Automated audio transcription converts audio or video recordings to plain text content using artificial intelligence (AI) or automated speech recognition (ASR) technologies.
This type of transcription leverages AI’s speed and produces lightning-fast audio and video transcription. Automated transcription software and speech-to-text services are often cheaper than human transcription.
So, what’s the catch?
Well, for all its speed, AI is woefully inaccurate. Any advantages of lecture transcription are rendered moot at that point.
AI transcription work is at the mercy of background noise, overlapping speakers, different accents and dialects, and poor audio file quality. It cannot identify nuance and utilize context to create a more accurate verbatim transcription – things that come naturally to experienced human transcriptionists.
The text comes in an endless stream without punctuation or context. Students may use it for one-off transcription work but not for anything requiring precision.
For educators and facilitators, though, transcribing audio using ASRs and automated transcription tools is, quite simply, unacceptable.
Unlike with a quick student note from a recorded class, errors in official lecture transcripts can hurt your students. Errors can be damaging and embarrassing, and information can be warped with a single wrong word. This can be particularly problematic for hard-of-hearing students, as sections of the transcript may make absolutely no sense to them. This can pull them out of focus and cost more time.
Human Transcription
AI may be popular now, but Ditto’s human transcription service is still the gold standard for transcription. As the name implies, a human handles every step of our transcription process.
Our specialists transcribe, edit, proofread, and polish, all with the sapience and awareness of fellow human beings. This is why human transcription is far more accurate, and that means wasting less time and money editing and modifying flawed transcripts.
Yes, human or manual transcription can be a little more expensive than automated solutions. In the long run, however, it’s well worth it – especially if you don’t have to review and edit your transcripts after receiving them.
Furthermore, human-powered transcription offers many extra services, such as providing timestamps, following grammar and formatting guidelines, and converting complete transcripts to different file formats.
Ditto’s Academic Transcripts Can Make Online Classrooms More Engaging
We acknowledge the importance of making online learning more engaging for students and educators. For this reason, Ditto Transcripts guarantees 99% accuracy on all transcription work.
Our team of professional transcriptionists can transcribe everything. Whether audio or video recordings of lectures, interviews, or meetings – you name it, we’ll do it with our trademark exceptional accuracy. Every transcriptionist we work with is under strict confidentiality agreements, so you can trust that any verbatim transcriptions are secure.
We also offer expanded services, customization options, fast turnaround times, and affordable rates. Contact us today for a free trial.
Ditto Transcripts is a FINRA, HIPAA, and CJIS-compliant Denver, Colorado-based transcription services company that provides fast, accurate, and affordable transcripts for individuals and institutions of all sizes. Call (720) 287-3710 today for a free quote and ask about our free five-day trial.