Now that you have designed your course, let’s look at strategies for keeping students engaged throughout the course. Below we’ve written up 7 things you can start doing immediately to increase engagement in your asynchronous class.
Establishing a focus on understanding the course structure and communication at the start of the semester is key.
Having a timeline of activity is a helpful starting point for creating an engaging learning experience. Just because it’s asynchronous, it doesn't mean you turn assignments in whenever you feel like it. It just means that you study at your own pace. Some students learn well in a self-paced environment. Others need much more support, so it’s important to set expectations clearly and often.
Students respond well to the relatability of real-world issues. Incorporating news stories from popular press articles can help students connect course concepts to their applications in real-world situations.
Using announcements works well for this. For example, we recommend sending an announcement before each new module to give structure to the learning experience, and then following up with a relevant newspaper article a few days later to help frame the new module in the context of current events or trends.
Blended Teaching’s in-platform news feed makes it easy to find relevant articles from reputable sources, and will launch for Fall 2025.
If you are recording your own videos, things can start to feel a bit stale for students by the mid-point of the semester. Incorporating video materials from other sources can enrich the learning experience by providing a more diverse range of voices.
Blended Teaching provides a full semester’s worth of cinematic video materials. Each video chapter is accompanied by quiz and exam banks, discussions, and homework assignments, all integrated directly into your Canvas or Blackboard pages.
Think creatively about how to engage students, not just visually, but using audio can help to keep students engaged. Students don't want to write a half-page email for help with something they're confused about, but if you leave a voice memo for a student, either on Canvas or Blackboard or in their inbox, they're going to be much more likely to respond using the same approach, and they will give you more information about what they don't understand.
Incorporating a feedback loop throughout each module is essential. Zoom office hours before a project are well-attended, but summary sessions after a project are not. Regular, consistent feedback throughout the module is key.
Don’t be resistant to making changes semester-to-semester based on students’ feedback. If you have students that are particularly engaged, consider asking them for feedback on the layout of the course, the assignments, and if they’d like to see something different. That can help increase the quality and level of engagement both for the current class, and future async classes.
Forcing engagement doesn’t tend to work particularly well, so we recommend focusing on activities, communications and materials that encourage engagement, rather than penalizing students for not engaging.
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