The rise of online learning has revolutionised university teaching. Whether students study in-person, remotely or take a hybrid approach, much higher education is now delivered via digital platforms, supported by a proliferation in educational technology (ed-tech). Find out how lecturers can adapt their teaching methods for digital delivery, build online learning communities and use the latest technology to support immersive learning, gamification and AI-adaptive learning.

Online learning

When choosing online tools,&nbsp;you need to think carefully about which levels&nbsp;of learning&nbsp;you&nbsp;are&nbsp;trying to&nbsp;address:&nbsp;habits, constructs&nbsp;or&nbsp;abstractions.&nbsp;

Learning new habits involves repetition and reinforcement;&nbsp;learning new constructs involves connecting existing knowledge with new information;&nbsp;and learning&nbsp;new abstractions&nbsp;involves reconceptualising existing understanding to develop new perspectives.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Within higher education,&nbsp;levels of acquired knowledge among learners are high. Most of the teacher’s role,&nbsp;therefore,&nbsp;tends to be&nbsp;about&nbsp;structuring&nbsp;learning to best transmit constructs and abstractions,&nbsp;enabling learners to understand new information in the context of what they already know.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Selecting&nbsp;online tools that&nbsp;help&nbsp;learners&nbsp;build on their&nbsp;existing knowledge&nbsp;will improve the personalisation of your teaching,&nbsp;especially given the challenges in motivation and visibility of learning that can exist in predominantly or entirely online delivery.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Tools to consider&nbsp;


	
	Mind-mapping tools (such as&nbsp;XMind&nbsp;or&nbsp;Visio)&nbsp;provide a useful method both to convey your mental models&nbsp;to learners&nbsp;and to enable learners to convey theirs&nbsp;to each other and to you.&nbsp;
	
	
	Video&nbsp;recording and editing software (such&nbsp;OBS Studio&nbsp;and&nbsp;DaVinci Resolve)&nbsp;can provide an effective&nbsp;way for you to convey a combination of concepts&nbsp;online. You could, for example, combine&nbsp;a video recording of&nbsp;yourself talking with a presentation;&nbsp;or capture demonstrations on screen and discuss these;&nbsp;or include&nbsp;a&nbsp;video within&nbsp;a&nbsp;video to narrate or critique. You can then combine different&nbsp;pieces of&nbsp;learning&nbsp;content together to make&nbsp;it&nbsp;cohesive.&nbsp;Learners&nbsp;could,&nbsp;in turn,&nbsp;do the same&nbsp;as part of their coursework.&nbsp;
	
	
	Collaborative tools (such as&nbsp;Microsoft Teams&nbsp;or&nbsp;Span Workspace)&nbsp;provide&nbsp;options&nbsp;such as&nbsp;file sharing, project planning, notetaking, post-it boards&nbsp;and&nbsp;interactive&nbsp;wikis.&nbsp;These&nbsp;make&nbsp;group&nbsp;work easier&nbsp;to organise,&nbsp;more engaging&nbsp;and rewarding, and&nbsp;support&nbsp;developing&nbsp;rich digital content.&nbsp;&nbsp;
	
	
	Collaborative tools&nbsp;also&nbsp;provide simple interactive components such as surveys, quizzes and polls that make tracking learning progress easier both for teachers and learners, and&nbsp;enable the repetition and reinforcement required to develop new learning habits. These can&nbsp;then&nbsp;be&nbsp;combined&nbsp;with the higher-level tasks&nbsp;expected within higher education.
	
	
	Virtual&nbsp;learning&nbsp;environments also provide many of these opportunities, hence their&nbsp;remaining&nbsp;popular within higher education.&nbsp;&nbsp;
	


Promoting&nbsp;self-regulated&nbsp;learning&nbsp;&nbsp;

Self-regulated learning, while historically&nbsp;central&nbsp;to the learning process,&nbsp;is even more important&nbsp;in remote and online learning environments.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

In&nbsp;self-regulated&nbsp;learning,&nbsp;students’&nbsp;regulation is based on how&nbsp;they&nbsp;perceive current requirements in the context of what&nbsp;they&nbsp;have done previously. So,&nbsp;how&nbsp;students&nbsp;have reviewed previous learning has a direct impact on how&nbsp;they&nbsp;perceive current learning. This&nbsp;in turn affects how&nbsp;they&nbsp;plan and perform&nbsp;in future learning.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The key to effective&nbsp;self-regulated&nbsp;learning,&nbsp;therefore,&nbsp;is to focus on virtuous improvement cycles, incremental gains in learning and achievement through which&nbsp;students&nbsp;gain mastery.&nbsp;As&nbsp;students&nbsp;make these gains,&nbsp;their&nbsp;motivation&nbsp;increases&nbsp;and&nbsp;they&nbsp;persist.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Promoting&nbsp;self-regulated&nbsp;learning can involve a wide range of online tools to meet different learner needs&nbsp;but&nbsp;often simplicity is key as we seek to minimise learning barriers and maximise&nbsp;engagement.&nbsp;

A good starting point for improving persistence and positive achievement&nbsp;is&nbsp;to reflect on and reconceptualise previous&nbsp;unhelpful&nbsp;experiences.&nbsp;This&nbsp;is&nbsp;something&nbsp;students&nbsp;may not wish to share with the public or fellow students, but&nbsp;where&nbsp;the teacher can guide&nbsp;learners in&nbsp;more&nbsp;positive&nbsp;ways of&nbsp;viewing&nbsp;past experiences.&nbsp;

When&nbsp;it comes to&nbsp;planning&nbsp;learning&nbsp;tasks&nbsp;and setting learning goals,&nbsp;project management software (for example,&nbsp;Basecamp&nbsp;and&nbsp;Trello) can be useful,&nbsp;especially for&nbsp;complex tasks such as dissertations&nbsp;and group&nbsp;work.&nbsp;&nbsp;

However, a more important consideration is how to make better learning choices.&nbsp;How long should we spend planning versus implementing? Reflecting versus reporting?&nbsp;How well did we perform in the task that was asked of us?&nbsp;Understanding the impact of learning choices on performance, through monitoring, is a critical self-regulated-learning skill.&nbsp;

Finding&nbsp;the right information to&nbsp;analyse, monitor and review&nbsp;learning&nbsp;choices&nbsp;may be as simple as undertaking a literature search to&nbsp;analyse and&nbsp;understand existing perspectives&nbsp;or&nbsp;monitoring&nbsp;performance through&nbsp;a&nbsp;reflective progress log. Feedback from online focus group meetings and data collection from&nbsp;simple questionnaire software (such as&nbsp;SurveyMonkey)&nbsp;or&nbsp;analysis packages (such as&nbsp;SPSS)&nbsp;can also inform more objective performance reviews.&nbsp;

Transparency and tracking&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

While helping&nbsp;learners make informed planning choices, perhaps the most valuable intervention you can make is simply to share as much&nbsp;learning&nbsp;information with the learner as possible.&nbsp;&nbsp;

The better you structure your course&nbsp;to enable this,&nbsp;the more you will empower the learner to self-regulate their learning and take control over their learning performance.&nbsp;By&nbsp;breaking assessments down into component parts and setting checkpoints to indicate expected progress rates,&nbsp;you enable the learner to plan more effectively.&nbsp;By building in feedback points, ensuring learners reflect as they progress&nbsp;and seek guidance, you enable them to become better learners.&nbsp;&nbsp;

You will also be better informed on their learning progress and better able to make effective and timely learning interventions. These structural changes can usually be easily built into virtual learning, with surveys, quizzes and polls providing easy ways to test progress regularly&nbsp;alongside more traditional assessment submissions.&nbsp;

If learners&nbsp;know they are&nbsp;making&nbsp;good&nbsp;progress they will make&nbsp;further&nbsp;progress.&nbsp;Learning analytics, either institutionally or locally generated,&nbsp;can&nbsp;therefore&nbsp;also&nbsp;play an important&nbsp;role in the efficacy of learning when using online tools, just as sports tracking devices help drive sporting performance improvements.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Again though,&nbsp;where possible,&nbsp;keep&nbsp;things simple and effective. Make learning fun and engaging&nbsp;using online tools such as those outlined above to blend&nbsp;elements of competition, collaboration, personalisation&nbsp;and introspection.&nbsp;Learners&nbsp;should&nbsp;learn as much as possible about themselves within the learning process; by better&nbsp;understanding&nbsp;their&nbsp;own&nbsp;learning progress&nbsp;they can&nbsp;improve their future&nbsp;learning&nbsp;performance.&nbsp;

&nbsp;

Rupert Ward is&nbsp;a&nbsp;professor of&nbsp;learning&nbsp;innovation&nbsp;(associate&nbsp;dean,&nbsp;international) in the School of Computing and Engineering at the&nbsp;University of Huddersfield.&nbsp;&nbsp;

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