It's not always easy for learners to maintain a high level of motivation when learning online, especially when there is little face-to-face contact. Many institutions face a much higher drop-out or non-completion rate in online courses, so this is a serious issue for providers, teachers and students! Even with a well-designed course, teachers have an important role in maintaining interest and motivation. Teachers should:

Maintain regular communication

Keep in regular touch with learners through the use announcements or news items to the group, and the occasional personal email.

Set clear instructions for tasks, and be consistent where and how you provide them. For example, avoid having some instructions for activities online, while others have their instructions in a printed study guide.

Give feedback

When learners contribute ideas in a classroom discussion, they receive a lot of verbal and non-verbal feedback from you and their peers. But when learners contribute to an online discussion or other activity, much of this feedback is missing. So try to respond promptly by posting a reply acknowledging their ideas. If they are very off track or communicate inappropriately, you might consider replying privately to them by email!

Keep it moving

Engagement is a key to success for learners: that is, the degree to which their attention and commitment is 'captured' by the online activities and resources. Well-designed resources and activities tend to be more engaging than poorly-designed ones.

In addition, a sense of pace can help raise the level of engagement: even though the goal of e-elearning may be to provide greater flexibility, having clear timelines and milestones can be very useful in keeping learners focused on the course goals and outcomes. It can also be less isolating, since learners are aware of their peers working to the same goals at the same time.

But... don't overload learners with too many activities, too much communication, and unrealistic deadlines! That's a sure way to demotivate learners.

Manu: I try to post an announcement or news item at least once a week, even if it's just something quite informal. That way the students hear from me every week. If there is something important coming up, I'll make sure there is a news item just for that.