Animations as motivational videos for students in online courses
Motivation is one among the determining factors leading to the success of a class. However, it seems to be a challenge for educators, especially those teaching online courses. eLearning provides students a more convenient access to education but significantly lacks the face-to-face interaction and self-discipline. As a result, students having lower self-management skill are more likely to feel discouraged in the learning process when most of the time they study alone with little support from peers and lecturers. Without a good engagement strategy, students could drop out the course with unsatisfied learning experiences. Educational animations with visuals and sounds then could be effective motivational videos for students in online courses.
How educational animations motivate students in online courses?
There are two major motivation classifications identified by Educational Psychology are intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation comes from within the student like their interest or desire to learn. For example, if a student is fascinated in painting, there is a high likeliness he will enjoy art classes. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation comes external sources such as recognition from lecturers or peers. A simple praise from an instructor could make learners feel more rewarded in the courses.
Animated videos for educational purposes could become great motivational videos for students in both ways. They could be appealing teaching resources that engage online learners with entertaining sounds and visuals. Moreover, animations have an amazing explaining ability that easily simplifies even the most complicated ideas. This feature could enhance students’ understanding, which boosts their motivation by improving learning outcomes as well as accomplishment.
The young generation of learners has much shorter attention span nowadays. A research of Microsoft shows a shocking fact that people generally lose their concentration after eight seconds, which is lower than a nine-second memory span of an ill-focused goldfish. A well-designed eLearning course should be able to keep learners focused throughout the learning process. An informative animation is not a distraction then.
An additional of animated video in the course could give online learners an educational break. It releases the students’ stress and motivates them to continue the lesson. Furthermore, a series of short animated videos could be more appealing than a long slide. The bite-sized animations could help learners digest the information easier. It follows the concept of micro-learning when a long course is divided into much smaller modules.
It would be better to let people see how things work than taking forever to tell what happened. According to Forrester Research, one minute of video equates to 1.8 million words. Animations then have such amazing explaining ability, no matter how complicated the topics could be. While texts force the brain to create an image from scratch, the video gives the pictures right away. Any types of teaching content could be simplified and converted into highly-visual and engaging animated videos. Moreover, animations capture the abstract ideas much better than a normal live-action clip. Live-action shows what in front of the camera, however, animated videos are beyond that.
Take a look at how books are converted into animations in the showreel of Permaculture Design Online Course:
As a result, animations help students understand and focus on the lessons better, which could have a positive effect on the learning outcomes. When students get a sense of achievements in the course like praises from lecturers or good grades, they are likely to be motivated to accomplish more.
Fresh and exciting experiences
Animations have an incredible story-telling ability that could break the traditional sense of learning being long and tedious. Full-of- text content could be converted into a funny story with eye-catching images and sounds. Have you ever imagined teaching a scientific course in a hilarious way? Humor could be added naturally to animations in the script or character design.
However, the most important thing is that animation brings new experiences to learners. It gives them a getaway from long and stressful documents, which may inspire their enthusiasm in the lesson. There are various ways to motivate a student. We could give them praises, show them full support or personalize the eLearning. However, if a student takes great interest in the subject, they could develop a desire to learn deeper without a demand for high grades or recognition.
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