Strategies to fuel student engagement

Behavioural engagement

• Competency: Design courses that build on prior knowledge. You can engage students’ prior knowledge, for example by using digital tools for polling or quizzes with instant feedback.
• Autonomy: Provide opportunities for students to apply knowledge in their own ways.
• Relatedness: Encourage teamwork through collaborative activities like group projects and peer-feedback.

Emotional engagement

• Competency: Use real-world problems to create meaningful learning experiences and connect students to society.
• Autonomy: Involve students’ experiences when setting learning goals, or let students set their own learning goals.
• Relatedness: Use icebreakers, self-disclosure or storytelling. Encourage students to be open and communicate about their emotions.

Social engagement

Sense of Community: Feeling integrated into a community can stimulate student engagement and performance. Focus on a positive dialogue and a supportive culture of mental health with clearly established protocols. Support students in developing teamwork and socialisation skills.

• Competency: Facilitate collaborative problem-solving.
• Autonomy: Encourage student-led discussions.
• Relatedness: Create a safe learning environment by showing respect and make sure every student can share their view. Use inclusive language.

Cognitive engagement

• Competency: Communicate clearly throughout the course about course goals and activities.
• Autonomy: Use problem-solving tasks instead of procedural tasks to let students shape their learning path with your support.
• Relatedness: Use group work and explain how peer interaction can enhance their knowledge and understanding of the subject.

Behavioural engagement

• Competency: Create (AI-powered) adaptive learning platforms which could maintain students’ interest over a longer period of time with interactive and personalised content. Include real time feedback on these platforms. Or you can use Wooclap for formative assessment purposes.
• Autonomy: Design online activities compatible with various devices and formats.
• Relatedness: Establish virtual study groups and manage student anxiety with supportive interventions.

Emotional engagement

• Competency: Reward students with digital badges for completing tasks.
• Autonomy: Integrate students’ personal experiences into your course. Be open to diverse learning outcomes (in Prayogo et al., 2023, several articles are mentioned in which technical ways to foster students’ learner autonomy are described).  
• Relatedness: Use check-ins and movement breaks during long sessions.

Social engagement

• Competency: Develop collaborative tasks for real-time interaction.
• Autonomy: Let students moderate discussions and provide peer feedback.
• Relatedness: Enhance interaction with videos and discussion boards.

Cognitive engagement

In blended courses, consider the cognitive overload generated by your split attention between online students and face-to-face students. Some indicators of online cognitive engagement that should be intentionally incorporated into your lessons are thinking critically, integrating ideas, and distributing expertise.

• Competency: Provide scaffolding and structured guidance during online discussions.
• Autonomy: Encourage students to present their findings online through digital tools like a collaborative digital whiteboard.
• Relatedness: Use interactive tools like live polling, videos and podcasts, games, chatbots, AI tools, collaborative lecture note taking, interactive quizzes, online forums, open-access computer algebra systems, community sharing initiatives and simulations.