Rapidly declining learner engagement is something eLearning professionals have been trying to address since the last few years. Learner engagement being a decisive parameter in determining the return on investment of training programs, it has remained a buzzword in the eLearning industry. With eLearning becoming the new normal because of the pandemic, the need to solve the issue of rapidly declining learner engagement has come to the limelight again.
Keeping the learners in an eLearning program engaged and motivated isn't an easy feat to achieve. While strategies like microlearning & developing engaging learning content can help to an extent, they are not a viable solution to the problem.
Gamification: The key to keeping learners engaged & motivated
While there are proven strategies like microlearning, spaced repetition, and developing engaging learning content to increase learner engagement, they only focus on keeping learners engaged only for a while or only for a few lessons. Due to which these methods are not of much help in retaining learner engagement in a larger picture.
This is where Gamification comes into the limelight. Gamification makes use of the innate inclination of learners towards competition & achievements and incorporates it into the learning & development programs. By Incorporating gamification into eLearning programs, instructors can foster a healthy competitive environment among learners, eventually boosting learner engagement.
Here at BrainCert, we've been keeping our nose to the grindstone working on introducing a gamification feature to our Enterprise LMS. We've added gamification as an extension to the platform to give instructors a free hand to activate/deactivate gamification as they choose to.
Now instructors can award points & badges to learners based on their learning progress and performance in assessment tests. We've also incorporated a reward feature using which instructors can choose to reward learners based on the points/badges they receive.
Here are the gamification elements in BrainCert LMS
Points
Depending on the performance of learners (including learner progress, marks they score in assessment tests, learner engagement, etc) instructors can award points to their learners. In short, for every learning objective that is completed, learners are awarded certain points (which instructors can customize)
For instance, you can choose to automatically award 25 points to a learner for every lesson they complete or say 50 points for every assessment test they clear.
Badges
Unlike certificates that are assigned to learners only after the successful completion of a course, Badges can be awarded to learners after the successful completion of smaller milestones. Rewarding learners for the smaller milestones has been proven to be beneficial in improving learner engagement.
For instance, say you have published a course on Digital marketing. Instead of making it one lengthy course, you should split the entire course into smaller sections like social media marketing, content marketing, search engine marketing, etc. When a learner completes each of these smaller milestones, instructors can choose to award a badge to the learners.
With BrainCert, instructors have an option to award badges to learners based on points or specific activities. For more information on awarding Points & Badges visit this article.
Leader boards
Leaderboards are the most important part of all gamification elements in BrainCert. Because the points & badges acquired by learners are displayed on the leaderboards, it'll foster a healthy competitive environment where learners try to compete with their peers.
From an instructor perspective, leader boards can be used to measure learner progress in real-time & to group learners based on requirements. With BrainCert, instructors can get the complete report from the super admin dashboard.
Rewards
With BrainCert, instructors can choose to reward learners based on the points they have acquired or the badges they have won. At present, there is only an option to give a discount on the prices of courses based on the points or badges learners get.
This is just a brief outline of the extent of gamification possible with BrainCert. For a better understanding of how you can leverage the gamification feature in BrainCert in your eLearning programs, signup for a free trial now.
To sum up
The best way to go about improving learner engagement in your eLearning programs is to bring in elements of gamification. With BrainCert's highly customizable gamification extension, you get all the tools you need to keep your learners engaged.
