Ever since the pandemic, online interaction has seen a meteoric rise. With more and more offices adopting remote work, employees are constantly staying online for work. But it is not just work, employees are also having to go through massive online training that companies are arranging.
Company employees are not the only ones relying heavily on online learning and interaction, students are also mostly learning and interacting with peers online. All this online learning has given birth to a new phenomenon known as online learning fatigue.
Even though the world has gone back to before, online learning is profoundly more integrated with our lives. In this new world, online learning fatigue is a potential downside of the almost total shift to online learning.
What Is Online Learning Fatigue?
Online learning fatigue is the overwhelming sense of exhaustion, anxiety, tension, or burnout that employees/learners feel as a result of frequent online meetings and classes. This kind of exhaustion could make it difficult for a worker to advance professionally. After a whole day of work sitting down again to learn for a couple of hours does not sound very pleasant over the long run. Students who have started in-person classes again find it difficult to incorporate online learning again in their routine.
Businesses are mass-training employees online as it turns out to be a cheaper, quicker, and easier way to train employees in comparison to physically holding training sessions.
Why Is Virtual Communication So Difficult?
Learners claim that they are now using video calls more and more frequently than they were before the epidemic. Due to their increasing screen time, fatigue and irritation set in their minds towards online learning.
They are more prone to multitasking temptations when they are already online. It’s easy to become sidetracked by checking emails, chatting with others, or exploring open tabs while taking part in online training or meetings.
Many individuals share their at-home workstations with spouses, children, and other family members which causes further loss of focus.
How Does Learning Fatigue Affect Your Learners?
Studies show that many learners who work from home are experiencing burnout, with as many as 69% of them feeling exhausted. This can result in even the most motivated individuals finding it difficult to attend yet another online learning session.
When it comes to training, screen fatigue can be a real problem. Individuals who are experiencing this type of burnout may be less focused on the training material and more focused on when they can finish the session.
Fortunately, there are ways to prevent this type of fatigue and help alleviate the burden on students.
Ways to Overcome Online Learning Fatigue
So how do you fight online learning fatigue? You need to identify key stressors for students with online learning, and once you do that, devise a strategy to effectively reduce stress and fatigue. Ensuring your students are prompt with your courses is essential to the success of your eLearning business. More students finishing your courses will in turn produce more reviews, recommendations, and overall higher turnover.
So let’s take a look at ways we can deal with online learning fatigue.
1. Keep to the Point
Dice your courses up into small parts or lessons or even smaller courses for students to ingest. This sort of learning appeals to learners more as a 50+ hour course seems way more daunting than one that’s let’s say only 4-5 hours long.
Another way to make bite-sized learning content is microlearning lessons. When creating microlearning lessons, it’s important to keep in mind the attention span of your learners. Research has shown that the average adult’s attention span is only around 8 seconds! Make sure your content is visually engaging and easy to follow, and avoid including extraneous information or distractions that may take learners’ focus away from the main message. In particular, videos should be no longer than 3-4 minutes long to maximize engagement and retention.
2. Keep It Adaptable
The capability of self-pacing is another feature that makes eLearning so approachable. Learners have the freedom to check in and finish training on their own schedules thanks to LMSs. For remote learners, having that kind of independence can greatly reduce stress. So instead of having a set deadline for all your courses, consider having a few courses that allow completion at the learner’s own time.
You can use the Tutor LMS content drip feature to achieve this. Content drip lets you sequentially release content for a course to your students. You can have it set up so course content is unlocked once the previous material is finished, which is perfect for students to take in one at a time. Learn more about Tutor LMS and how to utilize content drip.
3. Keep It Social
Learners frequently experience fatigue as a result of their isolation. Being with their peers is energizing for people. By incorporating opportunities for connection into your training, you can help create a sense of community with your students. Students can interact over similar topics in the Tutor LMS Q&A section or you could host a Google Meet meeting and introduce all your students to each other. Tutor LMS has an amazing interaction with Google Meet so you can host all your live classes right from Tutor LMS and utilize social learning!
A really nice initiative would be to host an offline meet and greet between students but obviously, that is quite difficult and might not be realistic.
4. Make eLearning Fun
Employee learning can occasionally be reenergized by some friendly competition. Utilize the functionality of your LMS to incorporate gamification elements into your training. Check this article out to learn more about gamification and how to use it for Tutor LMS.
Leaderboards that allow students to compare their progress with their peers can encourage students and keep them coming back.
5. Engage in Groupwork
Make each course a social experience as another approach to revitalize learning and get away from passive screen time. Working together as a team combats feelings of isolation by increasing interaction.
Additionally, a more practical application of the material increases its significance and retention. Consider including group projects or cooperative learning activities to promote conversation. Learners will comprehend and retain more information as they reflect more deeply on the practical application with their peers. This is in line with the social interactions we spoke about earlier but this goes a step further.
6. Build More Engaging Content
To keep learners engaged and prevent them from losing interest, it is important to ensure that your training materials are designed to capture and maintain their attention. Take a look at your course content and see if it might be lacking some flair and needs changes.
Try to use a variety of learning mediums, such as images or animations, to break up text-heavy slides and engage different learning styles. Another effective method is to incorporate interactive features, such as quizzes and scenarios that require the learner to take action. By requiring learners to actively engage with the material, they are more likely to stay focused during the training. Tutor LMS offers over 10 types of different quizzes so you can keep challenging and engaging your students.
In Closing
While there is no one definitive way to help learners alleviate learning fatigue, there are a lot of small steps you the instructor can take to make life easier. Of course, this is a two-way street and students have to reciprocate and extend their efforts too. But with the tactics mentioned in this article, you can leverage the power of a potent lms to switch up your eLearning site.
Tutor LMS lets you have all this control over your courses and business, you can help students rid of their fatigue and so much more. So don’t wait and try Tutor LMS on for size today! We hope your eLearning journey with Tutor LMS is amazing and fruitful, as always be sure to let us know your thoughts in the comments. Till next time, Sayonara.
