Introduction

Previous chapters have covered reducing volume to making learning more inviting and manageable (Chapter 2), then bite-sizing learning sessions and recordings (Chapter 3), and developing engaging delivery and lesson designs (Chapter 4). This chapter focuses on how we can further reduce barriers to learning and engagement with the use of supports. Support measures we can provide include; short videos and written messages designed to motivate learners to keep going, (e.g., with encouragement and assurances), useful advice and guidance and communicate in ways that personalise their study experience. The messages we design, like tips on studying efficiently and guidance on assessments, can ease student load and impediments to success.

Student support serves as a student-centred support component in microlearning design. Providing support, can make a world of difference, especially for those who are vulnerable to losing hope and giving up. For many, supports we can build in, can be effective in activating motivation and instilling confidence they need to proceed and stick with it. It is often a critical factor for getting students engaged and keeping them engaged to retain them over the long term. While support measures, as covered, require some time and effort, this can be contained with routine and streamlining and pre-empting and catering for student support needs can also pay efficiency dividends.

Supports include lecturer presence, with brief lecturer videos, starting with a Welcome to Course (2 or less minutes), these can then be followed with Introduction to Week (preview) videos to stimulate interest, engagement as well as personalise the experience for students and help build sense of belonging. Students who feel comfortable and familiar with their lecturers, tutors and class peers are more likely to engage and less likely to feel isolated (Congiu & Moscati, 2021).

The concept of nudging, at its broadest level, is seen as a key support-provision approach in the context of this book and involves personalised and supportive messaging. This includes messages of encouragement, nudge messages that prompt students to engage with learning resources and study related activities, assignment tips and reminders for upcoming due dates. While nudging is commonly understood as the sending of written message prompts, lecturer videos (mentioned above), also work in similar ways, as they too, are often used to promote engagement with concepts and recommended resources to help ensure success in a course. Announcement messages can be used to promote awareness of institutional support services, including learning and wellbeing.

Another important way to support our students is with the kind of feedback we give on assessments. Feedback that is specific and focused on improvement for future performance assessments or work type tasks, e.g., public relations content writing. Where possible, feedback should be as instructive as possible. Ideally, feedback should maximise the efficacy of an assessment, in its function as a learning tool.

Make grading scoring realities explicit to students to minimise and prevent misunderstanding and disappointment and help alleviate damage to satisfaction and motivation.  

Lecturer videos

Welcome (overview)

Providing a welcoming and supportive environment from the start is an important first step toward fostering a sense of connection with the course, and the lecturer, with the warmth of a friendly face to humanise the learning experience. A personal welcome by a course lecturer provides a positive start and first encounter.

This support and engagement strategy is aimed at helping students overcome feelings of isolation, especially for those studying remotely and online. While this is important for all courses, it is even more so for large courses where teaching interactions can be mostly with course tutors.

We can use lecturer videos, like a course welcome and course introduction, to try and nudge students towards active involvement and commitment to their learning journey. The personal touch and visual appeal of videos can be used to reduce feelings of isolation (especially in online environments), build sense of belonging, and set a positive tone for the course ahead. While this is important for all courses, it can be even more important for large courses where teaching interactions may be mostly with tutors.

An informal, conversational style works best, so that can see the lecturer is an approachable person and a supportive ally and genuinely interested in the value of the course to students (promote and stimulate interest) as well as the quality of their learning experience, demonstrating ‘care factor’. It helps give a personalised experience in feel for students when entering the course. A way to personal delivery.

The lecturer should be foregrounded, so it is best to avoid use of slides. These videos can used for brief advice on succeeding in the course, selling the value to be gained, stimulating interest (e.g. what makes it interesting and rewarding) and conveying expectations, but in a positive and encouraging tone. Keeping videos as short as possible is critical to their success, ideally they should be kept to 1 to 2 minutes.

Learners are eager to see their lecturers ‘in person’ in videos, particularly, in welcome videos. But  in many cases, they do not appear, and opt for voice-over slides. The problem here is that students want to see you! If you were in the student role, you would want that too.

Lecturer appearance is often talked about in the language of ‘lecturer presence’ an apt term that helps support why foregrounding physical appearance is important. It provides a way for students to connect with the teacher in a way that helps to humanise and personalise learning and in effect provides emotional support. While a welcome video is used to establish a connection, we can then continue to develop connection with follow on weekly introduction to topic videos (discussed next).

The example (below) ‘Welcome video’ (video; 1’41”; CC-BY) establishes teacher presence, and prepares the foundation for connection.

Ingredients for effective course welcomes include:

• enthusiasm: for the course and learners
• showing care: connection with concern for student success and positive experience
• brief but interest-capturing introduction e.g. what makes the subject area exciting, appealing and/or worthwhile (keep brief, follow on weekly videos can be used to further stimulate interest)
• concluding with a prompt for action to help students get active and involved.  For example, asking students to introduce themselves on a course forum, recommending they familiarise themselves with the assessments and begin studying the first module.

Introduction to week

While similar to welcome videos, (as above), the aim here is to preview the week’s topic, a taster to stimulate student interest, encourage engagement and build a sense of connection to their teachers, and the learning process itself (i.e., to view the learning as a worthwhile investment in themselves).

Providing a 1 to 2 minute introduction for each week and module topic, delivered by the lecturer, not only personalises learning and increases sense of belonging and connectedness, but is again used to promote interest the topic and related subtopics week by week to sustain engagement. We can create interest by highlighting an intriguing aspect of the week’s content or practical value i.e., what is to be gained. We can also use these videos to encourage engagement with high priority learning resources, for example, a textbook chapter, or a reading, or video.

These videos are an opportunity to point out what makes principles to be covered interesting and to link to relevance, like the benefits students should expect to gain from this section knowledge. The importance of ‘selling’ engagement in the week’s learning resources should not be underestimated. In do so, it is important to not only mention content topics, like concepts, but to refer to and promote and recommend content in the week’s learning resources ^[1].

If we want students to engage with resources, we should be promoting interest factors, like, what makes this author’s insights interesting and what is the value to be gained from a reading. As pointed out in Chapter 2, on reduction, if a reading is not worth mentioning, then  we should ask “is it really worth keeping?”

These videos supplement engagement approaches covered in Chapter 4 learning design, like – drawing on interest (e.g., fun facts), injecting positivity and enthusiasm in classes to promote and generate interest in topics and material for starting each week. These steps are important because they help address risks that around perceptions that topics are not interesting (i.e., appear boring).

These weekly videos also fit with well with the microlearning delivery strategy of learning in small steps, key concepts are introduced, and students then begin their study for the week with some familiarity already established. In microlearning speak, some would categorise this as pre-teaching akin to prepping i.e. preparing or priming, prior to engagement with learning sessions and reading resources. In this sense, introduction to topics, is a delivery method and learning support combined.

Weekly videos are often best delivered by the lecturer, but they can be done by a course tutor, if need be. Alternating video presentations between lecturer and tutors can help build familiarity with both while also adding variety to the learning experience.

To help ensure the videos personalise learning, the lecturer or presenter should be foregrounded as much as possible. This includes keeping slides to a minimum, if used at all, to ensure screen display foregrounds the presenter. The frequency of weekly introductions is method aimed at providing continuity of connection for building and maintaining a sense of personalisation and belonging.

The three videos (below) offer examples of ‘introduction to week‘ videos to build continuity of connection.

Example 1: ‘Introduction to Week (1) – Qualitative Research’ (video; 3’14”; CC-BY)

Example 2: ‘‘Introduction to Week (2) – Criteria for Qualitative Research (video; 2’03”; CC-BY)

Example 3: ‘‘Introduction to Week (3) – Quantitative Research (video; 2’18”; CC-BY)

Assessment guidance

Short lecturer ‘how to’ video guides provide added support to assist with assessments. They help students to apply content more effectively for producing well focused assessment work. They can be used to help students avoid pitfalls, like misinterpretation of assignment instructions and to guide them so they address the tasks and criteria required for assessments correctly.

Videos are a relatable medium for students for conveying what is required of them to effectively and successfully undertake assessments. Again, a conversational tone can be used to create the feeling of the lecturer speaking directly to students in a manner akin to a face-to-face learning experience. The lecturer or teaching team member can foreground themselves for the opening before going on to display and work through task instructions and marking criteria along with any other material that is useful, for example, checklists, points of note, pitfalls to look out for, etc.

A guidance assessment video should be provided from each assessment and therefore tailored for exams. A video length of 2-4 minutes for each works well. For assessments that require more time, like large or complex assessments, longer recordings can be segmented into instalments.

Providing or including an explanation of the relevance of the assessment, e.g. value of an assignment to employment or job capability or proficiency, is an option, but not needed if relevance details are already provided in the opening to assignment task instructions.

If relevance e.g., to industry, information is included with assignment instructions, ensure explanations are short and avoid repetition. Adhere to microlearning design principles of keeping materials as clear, direct and succinct as possible to reduce unnecessary overload to allow focus on the most essential and critical information. A good check-question to ask here: Is this information adding or detracting from the purpose of – useful ‘need to know’ assignment guidance?

Instructional ‘how to tackle’ the assessment item is very useful for students. A tour of the marking criteria and marks allocated also helps ensure that criteria are not overlooked and that they are  fully addressed. Providing tips, like common pitfalls, help fend off slippages in criterion score.  Doing this is an example of ‘feeding forward’  ahead of post assignment feedback.

The first assessment guidance video (below) is informal in tone, and an update and addition to two previous assessment guide videos and as such more general (i.e. less specific).

Example 1: ‘Assignment guidance 1‘ (video; 1’44”; CC-BY), is informal in tone, and an update and addition to two previous assessment guide videos and as such more general (i.e. less specific).

Example 2: ‘Assignment guidance 2′ (video; 1’50”; CC-BY), a snippet only, of a tour of the marking criteria for an assignment requiring more length than most due to the complex of the task.

Nudging: to encourage, promote and support

Nudging refers to the use of positive message prompts and messages of support and guidance that are conveyed in a gentle and personalised style. They are often used to encourage students to engage with online learning resources and keep them on track with their progress. This support helps students manage assessment tasks, i.e., start and complete on time, lower the risk of falling behind, and flow on effects of becoming overwhelmed to the point of not completing assessments – ultimately risking failing a course (Graham, et.al., 2017).

Nudging is a learning support intervention technique designed to encourage learners to engage more actively in courses (Congiu & Moscati, 2021). It is a useful for motivating learners and for sustaining motivation to stay engaged and thus increase their chances of successful completion. Support can be especially important for online students who have fewer ways to engage and receive support, and often have greater demands on their time and attention, e.g. jobs, young family.

Learning resources nudging is the most widely known form of nudging in online learning education. Formally, and mostly commonly known nudging, is the Nudging Protocol (Congiu & Moscati, 2021), it is used for promoting engagement with course learning resources identified as most important or critical to success. Resources promoted, are often, but not limited to, set readings, probably because longer form text materials can seem more difficult and thus less inviting. Nudge messaging can also include reminders and alerts, like, nearing due dates.

A key principle underpinning the nudging strategy is that their effectiveness is not overusing them. Nudging becomes nagging when used too often (Congiu & Moscati, 2021). At worst, overused and overly directive nudging can overwhelm learners and make them feel that they are being threatened and criticised, and demotivate rather than motivate them. Overuse adds to information overload and as such, annoying ‘noise’ or clutter than can turn students off reading messages, let alone accessing resources and advice within. Overdoing engagement initiatives leads to engagement fatigue.

Direct messaging: Encouragement and support

Promoting learning support services

Promoting other learning support services, including institution supports offered by student support services and library services, including study sessions (e.g. mathematics, writing),  generic assignment guidance and proof reading services,  can be broadcast on course home pages and mentioned sparingly with announcement messages. Be careful not to over-do, i.e. repeatedly promote.

Assessment feedback and expectations setting

Guidance and feedback on assessments is a critical point for providing support.

‘Paying it forward’ is a useful strategy for pointing out pitfalls where students in the past have  missed out on marks due to oversights – a way of heading off problems ahead of submission.  Assignment guidance information should be timed to minimise overload e.g., bit-by-bit instalments, e.g., in nudge messaging.

Assessment is not only important for educators as our measure of learning performance, but even more so for our students, it is a ‘bottom-line’ matter.  So, scoring (i.e., grading) submitted work and giving feedback warrant care and attention, as is, showing students that care has been taken.

Feedback should be as instructive as possible and maximise the learning-value an assessment.  Instructive feedback is supportive as it provides information on areas for improvement to increase performance and in the quality of their work and where possible in assignments to follow. It should be a component of the learning journey.  See Appendix: Essay advice and Feedback

Marking criterion-based rubrics:  Well detailed criterion-based rubrics can also play an important role as a feedback tool (Refer: Chapter 2 on Constructive Alignment)

Setting expectations about grading

Student perceptions on the grades students are awarded for their assessment work is a major source of disappointment and dissatisfaction for many students.

This is understandable because the standards and conventions of grading the system in higher education appear harsh and the number scoring used are not explained early on. As a result, students often find grades they receive for their effort disappointing, demotivating and even distressing.

The answer to clearing up this issue lies in explaining the grade scoring system and making expectations clear is an important support-line for students. We carry responsibility for informing students to minimise and prevent misunderstanding and disappointment; not doing so runs the risk of misleading them. Clear and focused communication is warranted in this area of need, so that we can assist students with maintaining their motivation and help ensure their learning experience remains positive yet grounded.

Accordingly, we need to make grade scores and realities around levels of attainment  explicit to students, especially merit grades e.g., ‘distinction’ and ‘high distinction’,  to help our students realistically manage expectations on higher education grading standards and conventions. This  is an area that warrants attention.

Supporting and managing learning journey stresses

The better we understand the stresses our students face the better able we are to be able to support them.  Here are some stress factors to consider when working with students:

• Lifeload refers to the commitments learners bring to the study environment. They do not arrive free of other obligations beside study; they too live in a world of competing commitments e.g., work life and time pressures.
• Cognitive load is the load learning places on people. It becomes problematic when it leads to overload, which can be stressful, confusing, and depleting.
• The stresses of life and learning also create emotional strain, which can confuse and erode cognitive processing resources.

Recognising the realities of our learners helps us become more effective teachers. Being empathetic and responsive, including being a good role model, are ways we can support students through their learning journey. Setting respectful boundaries plays at part, pandering, i.e., giving in to unreasonable demands undermines the goal of developing responsible, resilient and self-reliant graduates and self-directed lifelong learners.

Conclusion

Lecturers and teachers have a critical role to play in encouraging student interest and motivation in learning. In addition to high-engagement design features in microlearning aimed at increasing engagement and improving learning performance. Providing additional supports can play a critical role in facilitating a genuine sense of ownership and belonging, and sense of confidence.

List of References