Course Completion Made Easy: Tools and Strategies to Ensure Student Success

Designing an online course that sells is far easier than designing an online course that motivates students to complete it. Throughout today’s guide, we will explore the best tools and strategies to ensure student success and motivate learners to complete the course efficiently.

Moreover, we have conducted an interview with an industry expert, Mariana Pena, to provide you with expert advice on increasing course completion rate and engagement levels. So, if you are ready, let’s dive into it

How to keep students engaged until the end?

Well, before diving further into the article, let’s review a few practical ways to increase student engagement and completion rates. 

Segment content into manageable units

“When we think about learning in terms of pure content, it can get very complicated, very fast. But if we think about actions that people can take after they complete your course, then it forces you as a course creator to be very factual.” 

Mariana Pena 

Instructional Designer, Course Expert

It is vital to break down the course into smaller manageable units. This is a great approach to make the material seem less overwhelming and more manageable. By breaking down the content into smaller units, you allow students to focus on one part of the course at a time, better digesting the learning material by simply decreasing cognitive overload. 

First, identify the course’s key topics to break down the content into smaller units. Then, create sub-topics.

 For instance, “Market Research” can be a key topic of the course sub-topics, which can be “Primary Research” and “Secondary Research”. Each sub-topic will elaborate on the concept/definition and provide practical advice/tools useful to conduct the mentioned research type. 

Create quick wins early on 

“We create sprints...A sprint is a quick win. It’s to give the students the feeling and the reassurance that the money that they spent on you was well spent. If we don’t do that, we’re going to lose the high motivation that they had when they signed up.”

Mariana Pena 

Instructional Designer, Course Expert

Quick wins are dopamine and instant motivation boosters that keep students engaged. So, make sure the course content is designed in a way that provides immediate and tangible results for the students. Now, this can be a bit difficult to achieve, but it is still a matter of management. The key is to focus on helping students build momentum for the ultimate learning experience. 

To implement quick wins, first, identify the key learning outcomes and, based on these, design mini-goals for the students. Dedicated actionable tasks should achieve the mini-goals. Make sure to incorporate tasks that students can complete immediately. 

For instance, if your course is about marketing, a quick-win task for students can be to create a social media profile for the brand and then create the first post or logo. 

Overall, for quick wins, you can incorporate other types of assessments as well, such as polls and right or wrong questions. Make sure also to incorporate elements that will help students celebrate their early successes and achievements through positive reinforcement. 

For instance, when you get a notification of a student completing a certain early-win assessment, you can send a personalized email celebrating the win or provide a discount coupon for the next course. 

Encourage active learning 

“Research indicates that active learning methods are especially effective for student learning when compared to classes that primarily consist of lecturing.” 

 Cornell University.  

To ensure a high level of engagement from start to finish, you can incorporate a working strategy of creating active learning assignments. Depending on the topic of your course, the active learning assignments will vary from one another. 

For instance, if you are teaching a “photography” course, then do not just focus on the theoretical part. In fact, incorporate an assignment where students must take photography of X theme and submit it before they can pass to the next level. 

The main benefits of active learning include better opportunities for students to process the material through active engagement and a chance to apply knowledge in practice. 

Use a roadmap to manage expectations

“The more you use a roadmap, the less friction you have with your learners because we are managing expectations. And again, this satisfaction is just expectations unmet expectations. So when we take the time, it’s just a few minutes in your videos. When you take the time to do that, you are reducing friction inside the course for the learners.” 

Mariana Pena 

Instructional Designer, Course Expert

Creating and using a roadmap for the entire course is an extremely useful strategy to ensure smooth course delivery. The roadmap is a visual representation of the source structure, milestones, and goals that help to present the essence of the course in a concise manner. 

The main benefit of developing a roadmap is that it directly contributes to increased course completion rates by clarifying the learning journey. The clarification roadmap allows for the management of expectations and reduces uncertainty regarding the course, providing students with more confidence and motivation to complete the program. 

A quality roadmap must include 

• the main goals and milestones of the course, 
• a visual representation of the approximate course timeline, 
• and checkpoints with which students can assess their progress and receive valuable feedback. 

Focus on actionable outcomes

“Think about the three specific actions that your clients or learners are going to be able to take once they have finished your course. And I don’t only want you to think about the three actions that they will be able to take confidently, I also want you to think the three actions that they WILL NOT able to take.” 

Mariana Pena 

Instructional Designer, Course Expert

The students who are going to complete the course are always interested in the outcomes that the course will deliver, essentially their return on investment. So, to increase student retention rate and motivate students to complete the course, make sure to clearly define the outcomes of the course. However, defining and listing theoretical outcomes is not enough. The outcomes must be actionable. 

As Mariana advises, you must focus on three specific actions that the learners will be able to do right after completing the course. The key word is “action”. Thus, when developing the outcomes section, brainstorm and identify key actions/skills learners will be proficient in by the end of the course. 

For instance, if it is a course on marketing, then an actionable outcome for the student can be “using Google Ads.” Another example of the actionable outcome of a marketing course can be “Create efficient email sequences.” 

Make sure these actions are transformed into objectives that are measurable. “Using Google Ads” is not enough. It must be used efficiently so the actual outcome can be redefined and included in the course as “Students will be able to create an effective Google Ads Campaign from start to finish.” 

Build relationships with your students 

To ensure high engagement levels and encourage course completion rates you can also focus on building long-lasting relationships with your clients and students. This is especially important if your content is pre-recorded and you never engage with students directly. 

To build and maintain relationships, you can provide students with contact details such as email or open a group dedicated to the specific course where you and your students can communicate on a regular basis. 

Besides group, you can also open a discussion board right next to the course content, allowing active participants to comment, ask questions, and even communicate with one another. 

What tools are essential for monitoring course progress?

To monitor course completion rates, you should incorporate tools that will help you measure and track student progress. 

Learning management systems 

To efficiently monitor student progress over time and track completion rates, you will need to incorporate a robust learning management system. For instance, Uteach. It is an all-in-one platform for course creators and coaches, allowing them to build an eLearning website and sell courses and training programs in different formats. 

One of the main features Uteach offers is robust analytics and tracking tools. These will allow you to track students’ progress from start to finish, identifying areas that will help to personalize the learning experience further and motivate students to complete the course. 

Surveys and feedback forms 

Another useful tool when it comes to increasing student course completion and engagement rates is surveys and feedback forms. You can use tools such as Google Forms or other survey builders to create assessments and collect feedback from the students. 

Assessments will help to incorporate active learning elements into the courses, increasing motivation to continue learning. Feedback forms will allow you to gain actionable first-hand insights into students' experience with your course for further improvements. 

Interactive dashboards and whiteboards 

Finally, let’s not forget about interactive dashboards and whiteboards. These are essential to increase engagement in the eLearning industry. For instance, you can use Microsoft Whiteboard to engage students in real-time collaboration. This is a particularly useful tool if you are going to host live webinars or classes. One way of utilizing the whiteboard is to conduct brainstorming sessions or encourage students to complete group projects. 

The main benefit of whiteboards and interactive dashboards is the visual learning experience they provide. 

How can you solve course completion problems?

There are many challenges associated with course completion. However, these can be efficiently addressed with the right strategies. 

First, start by setting clear learning goals to avoid confusion or false expectations. Use the strategy of creating a concise course roadmap and outline. This will help students gain a comprehensive overview of what to expect, and only students who are actually interested will proceed with the purchase. 

Next, work in increasing engagement. One of the main reasons why course completion rates are low is the fact that the course is simply too boring. Now, this sounds harsh, but it is true. Thus, make sure to incorporate some of the strategies we mentioned earlier regarding active learning and proving quick wins. 

Finally, do not forget about the importance of maintaining communication with the learners to offer sufficient support and maintain a sense of community. By incorporating measures such as support chats, group chats, and others to foster communication, you can set your course for success. 

Offer completion certificate

Do not forget about the final step that will boost the motivation of every student - offering a completion certification. 

Learning management systems such as Uteach come in handy with built-in certification builder capabilities, so you will not have to design and manually send certification to each of the students. Instead, you can build custom certifications and set an automation that will allow students who have completed the course meeting the requirements to receive a completion certification confirming their wins. 

Increase student success with Uteach 

Finally, it is time to increase your student success by choosing the right platform for bundling a business. 

When it comes to the platform choice, it is essential to consider end-clients and how easy it will be for them to use as well. Luckily, we have a perfect solution both for you and your end customers. 

Uteach is an all-in-one platform for course creators and trainers that offers easy UI, website builder, and marketing tools to create and efficiently promote your online courses. It is also worth mentioning that the platform offers a variety of features to increase student engagement, such as a certification builder. 

Schedule a free demo with our team to learn more about how Uteach can help you increase course completion rates and improve student engagement. We will be more than happy to assist you in budding and scaling your eLearning business.