When designing an online course, developers often start with a clear plan for readings and resources that align with assessments. But how should this content be delivered to students? What’s the right sequence to ensure it flows smoothly? Enter interactive lessons—a powerful tool to make course content engaging, accessible, and memorable.
In today’s online learning environment, students can consume content in countless ways: streaming video, online lecture text, interactive web elements, and more. With careful planning and design, these tools can combine into a cohesive, interactive experience that encourages comprehension and keeps students coming back for more.
In this post, we’ll dive into why organized, interactive lessons are worth the investment and provide a step-by-step guide for creating them in your courses.
Why Include Interactive Content in Your Courses?
Online learning is convenient for working students. Students can do their learning anywhere they have an Internet connection and a device to access the content. By compiling all the lesson materials into one simple package that’s mobile compatible, students can digest them much more easily. Most students will be looking at their phone anyway; they might as well pop open the next lesson and get ahead! If you make the content engaging and interesting, they might even prefer it over other mobile activities.
Accommodating Diverse Learning Styles
Interactive content doesn’t have to be a complex and properly sequenced web of video, interactive animations, and sequenced check-for-understanding questions. It could be as simple as a text page with question fields included for students to respond and receive instructor feedback. It does, however, open the door for different student learning styles to be met. To do this, online lessons may contain lecture text, video, and check-for-understanding questions. To make for a streamlined learning experience, interactive lessons can combine course content into a single and efficient presentation-style activity.
Adding Formative Assessment
Interactive content opens the door to including frequent check-for-understanding questions, which can be used as formative assessment to help your students understand their progress toward mastery of learning objectives. Additionally, these questions can be used to loop students back to content they need to review, meaning the experience can be tailored based on each student’s progress toward outcomes and understanding of course content.
Resetting the Attention Clock
By employing different types of media, breaking longer pieces of content into smaller ones, and including check-for-understanding-type questions, interactive content helps ensure that students stay engaged in course material by intentionally resetting their attention clock. Instead of passively watching a video or reading a written lecture, students click through content at their pace, check their understanding of it, and engage in various forms of media, helping them stay engaged.
Creating Interactive Content
Great lessons begin with learning objectives. Use your course map to ensure the content and activities support these goals. For your first course launch, start simple—think text pages with embedded links or basic quizzes. As you refine the course with student feedback, you can add more advanced interactivity.
Choose Authentic Materials
Use real-world scenarios and examples to make content relatable. Students connect more deeply with material that feels applicable to their lives and careers. Outline the Lesson: Start with learning objectives and a clear introduction. Then, structure content into manageable chunks, using headings and transitions to guide students.
Focus on one micro-objective per lesson. Break up long modules into shorter lessons for better comprehension. Signpost Time Expectations: Include a “time-to-completion” indicator to help students plan their learning. Add Branching Paths: Tools like adaptive release allow students to follow personalized learning paths, reviewing remedial content or skipping ahead based on their progress.
Determining Time-on-Task
The length of the video: The length of any text-based components The frequency and number of check-for-understanding (practice) questions How long it takes a first-time user to learn the navigation and functionality of the lesson The difficulty of the content (Consult your learning objectives. Those that are in the more advanced cognitive domain might require more attention, thus requiring more time.) Adaptive Release
Some students may need remedial information to proceed to the next lesson successfully. This can be done through adaptive release. Many learning management systems offer the option to apply contingency settings for adaptive release. Adaptive release allows the instructional designer or instructor the option to apply rules for opening assignments or resources to students in a certain order. For example, a student must complete the lesson or achieve a certain score for competency in order to open assignments and the discussion forum for that week. This can be an effective way to ensure that important content is not skipped over by the student and ensures active participation and completion.
Branching is another effective technique when delivering content to students. Some online authoring tools allow the instructional designer or instructor to create a pathway for student learning. For example, if a student does not achieve competency in a specific outcome, they can be put on a more remedial path to review more in-depth content. Or, if a student achieves exemplary competency regarding an outcome, they can be put on a “fast track” path to skip some content areas that they already know, which prevents wasteful time on task.
Just like all assessments, your quiz questions should be in alignment with your course objectives. These questions can provide invaluable data, such as needed clarification for students, commonly missed questions, and lesson effectiveness. To quickly assess the effectiveness of each lesson, insert check-for-understanding questions throughout the lesson or at the end of the lesson. Automatically scored questions, such as matching and multiple choice, allow the instructor to quickly gauge student performance. Just remember that multiple-choice questions tend to only assess lower-level skills such as identification or selection rather than more advanced skills such as analysis or comparison.
To provide optimal learning opportunities for students, automatic feedback is encouraged. This feedback goes beyond simple yes–no feedback. Referring students to prior lessons or topics automatically via direct links can help them find the correct answer. Allowing multiple attempts will foster mastery. Alternatively, students can be required to achieve a certain score before proceeding onto the next lesson or assessment.
Accessibility is paramount when designing online course content. It’s important to consider the various learning styles of students and provide alternative learning opportunities. For example, when providing video content, it’s imperative that a transcript be provided and synchronized closed captions be made available for that video. Not only are closed captions essential for students with hearing impairments, but students who may not be impaired at all may still benefit from viewing the transcript. For example, perhaps a student doesn’t have access to headphones or earbuds or would like to watch the video in transit on a plane or bus. Equal alternatives go well beyond accommodating impairments.
Also, if the content contains any images or charts that explain content in visual detail, alternative text must be given to provide equal alternatives. Alternative text allows a student with visual impairments the ability to read detailed descriptions of images with the help of assistive technologies such as screen readers.
Conclusion
Interactive content allows students the opportunity to review and access content in a streamlined and concise manner. When brainstorming online course content for your next course, consider creating interactive content to keep your students on a successful track for course completion while making it engaging at the same time. With the correct formula of curriculum alignment, authentic content, pacing, and self-assessment, students are bound to excel.
References
Norman, M. K., Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., & Lovett, M. C. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
