CHECKLIST

LEARNER ENGAGEMENT
CHECKLIST
Deeply engaged learners are more motivated to try harder and improve themselves. They actively
seek to increase their performance and develop their knowledge and skills. As such, this kind of
engagement is incredibly powerful in personal development.

But whilst online learning can be highly effective, it also means your learners are only one click away
from hundreds of distractions. And we all know those cute cat videos on YouTube can be extremely
tempting.

Learner engagement is an enormous challenge for L&D professionals and educators alike. With this in
mind, we have created an interactive learner engagement checklist. Work your way through the list to
ensure you have included all ingredients necessary to fuel your engagement engines.

Let’s go!

LMS Purchase Checklist 1

 Now is the time to decide on your instructional
1. Make Training Accessible strategy. This helps you to define the process by
which your course is going to engage your learners.
Learning needs to be easy to consume. After all, your
engagement levels are guaranteed to suffer if accessing Categorise your broader learning content into smaller
training is difficult, regardless of how well you design your content units.
learning experiences.
Make sure your content is grouped logically. Your
Ensure your LMS has an intuitive learner dashboard. content can flow:
When your learners know where to click and how to
Progressively
find their training, there is less chance of them getting
lost or frustrated. Independently
For instance, use a familiar and straightforward menu Then, arrange your training content in Levels to give
structure and keep it consistent throughout your learners clarity over their progression. This also
entire learning management system. provides milestones for learners.
Create a strategy that allows learners to access Ensure learners have both mandatory and optional
training on multiple devices. This lets your end users training content to complete. This ensures your
choose how they learn and increases engagement learners have more information available if they want
through variety. to deepen their knowledge.
Use a mobile-first design on your mobile learning
app to encourage effective anytime and anywhere
learning. 3. Focus On Content
Similarly, make sure your content is optimised While facts and stats provide all the necessary information,
for mobiles. they are rarely engaging. As such, your course content and
design must be relevant and interactive to be engaging to
In addition, provide online / offline sync options on
your learners.
your mobile app solution, to ensure your end users
can learn, regardless of whether they have an active
Invest in high-quality content and take the time to
internet connection.
carefully craft your courses.
Make sure your content is easily digestible. You can
Review your content to fix typos or other mistakes
do so by utilising microlearning.
and remove whatever is not necessary.
Break broader topics into short 2-5 minute Remember to keep your content interactive. This is
microunits. especially important in self-paced learning courses.
Stay on topic and only cover one learning Many LMSs will help you to do this by offering a
objective in any one microunit. comprehensive authoring tool. Alternatively, you can
use an authoring tool from another supplier.
In addition, ensure your microlearning units
are varied and engaging by using a variety of Humans are visual animals, and visuals tend to be
multimedia assets and approaches. more engaging than plain text. As such, take care to
spice up your content with videos and images.

2. Structure Your eLearning Courses In fact, make sure to include a variety of eLearning
content and media in your courses to cater to
different learner preferences. These include, for
Your course structure matters when it comes to learner
example:
engagement. In fact, a good structure can be the deciding
factor between learning success and complete failure. As Presentations
such, the stakes are high.
Quizzes
Start by conducting a training needs analysis to
understand what your learners need to know. Audio files

Clarity is essential when it comes to engagement and Imagery

learner confidence. As such, set clear training goals
from the beginning. Video & Animations

And make sure your training goals are reachable. No Live streams
learner will be motivated to work hard for a goal that
Podcasts
feels impossible to achieve.
Use learning games to make your training content
You can do so by ensuring your goals follow the
more fun and engaging. Our game templates can get
SMART formula.
you off to a good start!

Learner Engagement Checklist 2

 Focus on providing examples and different contexts Have an upcoming due date
to ensure a more comprehensive understanding.
However, that alone is not enough to boost
However, above all, it’s essential that you survey and engagement. As such, take care to provide details that
ask for feedback from your learners to understand highlight the value of your training programme.
what content types they prefer.
Share training wins and highlight individuals’ positive
You can also take advantage of the power of performance to your learner audience.
narrative! After all, storytelling has been used to retain
and pass down knowledge throughout history.

Weave narrative into the content itself. When 5. Tailor Your LMS And Learning Courses
learners progress and get access to more
advanced content, they can unlock the next By customising your learning platform and personalising
parts of the story. your content, you can ensure your training is delivered in
the most effective way possible. This will help to keep your
The crucial thing is to make sure that your learners engaged in the process.
narrative properly aligns with your company’s
mission and culture. Your user interface should reflect the nature of
your brand. When it’s attractive to the user, they are
But that’s not all! Take things to the next level by automatically drawn towards desired actions and
encouraging user-generated content (UGC). learning activities.
You can do so by including UGC in your Branding your training programme is a great way to
curriculum and training programme. As we create a seamless learning experience. Ensure your
know, recognition is an excellent way to boost LMS is customised in the following areas:
engagement.
Logo
You can also make it a competition. Why not
reward users whose UGC has received the most Brand colours
‘likes’ or has been rated the highest by other
learners? These rewards can be Badges, XP or Custom imagery and banners
even real-world rewards.
Customised terminology and platform name

Domain name
4. Communicate With Your Learners
Similarly, use consistent colouring on your LMS to
highlight areas with similar themes and functionality.
Simply crafting an online training programme and hoping
for the best is not enough to engage your learners. And make sure each learning level is customised
Instead, you need to be a true advocate for your training to reflect the theme or narrative of your training
programme. programme.

Create a buzz around the launch. Use emails and real- But that’s not enough! Personalising your individual
world posters to make sure everybody knows what’s learners’ training is an excellent way to boost
coming and how excited they should be about it! engagement as it makes learning more relevant and
meaningful.
Share regular communications. This helps you to
weave your training programmes into your company As such, you should personalise each learner’s
culture. experience by:

You need to shine a spotlight on and promote any Choosing the format in which content is
vital training that your learners need to complete. presented or providing a variety of content
styles.
Take advantage of your LMS’s social feed and
other popular communication channels your Modifying the level of difficulty.
organisation uses.
Assessing learners’ behaviours and test results
In addition, if you provide a mobile or desktop and providing feedback and additional training
application, send push notifications. interventions where relevant.

Focus on promoting individual courses and your Adjusting the pace of each learner’s programme.
training efforts as a whole.

Set up email notifications that notify learners when:

They have been added to the LMS

Have been enrolled in a course

Learner Engagement Checklist 3

 An Experts Area to make it easy for learners
6. Gamify Your Courses to access help and the knowledge of your
organisation’s subject matter experts.
Gamification is one of our favourite allies in making training
fun and engaging. By creating healthy competition between The ability to rate and comment on content to
your learners, team or departments, you are guaranteed to allow your learners to share feedback about
see engagement and motivation levels skyrocket. their training experiences.

Gamify your training programme to turn learning into Team-based Leaderboards to encourage healthy
a friendly competition. competition.

Do so by ensuring your learning management system Squad Battles to allow your learners to
(LMS) offers built-in gamification features: demonstrate their mastery as a group.

Use Experience Points (XP) for progress or Surveys to facilitate further feedback from
achievement. learners about their training programme.

Add Badges for learning or activity milestones. And like with your traditional eLearning content, social
learning needs to be varied and fun to be engaging.
Include Leaderboards for peer and team As such, you can use social learning features to host:
competition.
One-to-one tutor interactions where
Add Levels learners can unlock as they progress learners can ask questions and clarify their
through a course. understanding.

Set realistic and achievable goals and reward learners Learner presentations that demonstrate their
with Badges when they meet those targets. skills and understanding to their peers and
instructors.
Offer rewards for learner engagement. While features
like Badges and XP are good, you can take it to the Q&A sessions where learner groups can ask
next level by including real-world rewards! questions to drive easier comprehension and
deeper understanding.
However, make sure your rewards are tied into your
organisational culture and fit in the course’s context. Post-and-comment interchanges that stimulate
discussions and help learners learn from their
You can also reward learners by using Streaks. Streaks peers.
are attached to an action and learners get a reward
for completing said action. This could include, for Provide a platform that enables the production of
example, logging into the platform 10 days in a row. user-generated content. You can do so by introducing
content-specific discussion groups to your LMS.
Gamification is all about making training fun. You can
add to that by adding fun elements throughout your Encourage discussions where learners share opinions,
platform. observations and experiences in both structured and
unstructured conversations.
You can relate these to public holidays and
create, for example, Easter eggs or treasure You can encourage discussions by instructing
hunts. your Admins to like and respond to any
comments learners add to their Social Feed and
Clubs.
7. Take Inspiration from Social Media Enable your learners to share any achievements or
certifications earned through your learning system to
Social learning is a powerful way to reduce learner isolation their social media profiles.
and engage your learners emotionally. After all, we learn
and retain information better if the learning occurs within a This helps your learners to gain recognition
social context. throughout their professional network, which is
a source of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
Social learning features help you to create an engaged
online learning community. Make sure to include the
following on your platform:

Live Chat to provide opportunities for learners to

communicate with one another.

Social Feeds to encourage learner-to-learner

communication.

Clubs to build networks around specific subject

matters.

Learner Engagement Checklist 4

 The number of Badges your learners have
8. Track Results & Improve earned.

The volume of user-generated content.

Tracking your learners’ performance and progress provides
you with some invaluable data. You can then use this The percentage of learners who complete more
data to improve your training programme and ultimately than one course.
enhance learner engagement.
The percentage of learners doing more than
Modern LMSs offer vast reporting features that help mandatory courses.
you to track your learners’ progress. You should use
those features to track: On top of your regular analytics and metrics, you will
want to know what your learners truly think about
The total number of users. their learning experience. As such, ask how users feel
about your training programme.
The total number of active users (as a
percentage of the total). You can do so by using survey tools on your
LMS.
The last time your users logged into their LMS
and if this number is going up or down. Similarly, content rating systems help you to
determine what kind of content your learners
How often your learners access their training find most valuable.
platform.
After collecting feedback, analyse which modules or
The time your learners spend on a course or content components have been the most engaging
activity. and successful.
The results of assessments, quizzes, exams or Then, make sure to take action and improve your
practice tests. course offering and structure according to user
feedback. This will make your learners feel valued,
The number of attempts your learners needed
which increases engagement.
to complete an assessment, quiz or test.

Activity on your social feed.

Wrapping Up!

Learner engagement is one of today’s biggest L&D

challenges. Modern learners have increasingly short
attention spans. This means that educators have just a
few seconds to grab their learners’ attention.

By following this checklist, you have made sure to

include all necessary engagement tools and features.
And with learning platforms like Growth Engineering
LMS, you are guaranteed to boost your engagement
levels!

Hungry for more knowledge? Head to our checklist

archive to download our other interactive tools and
supercharge your training interventions!

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