Gauging engagement (online/ in Moodle)

What do we mean by student engagement?

A learner’s involvement in a course, whether it be cognitive, behavioural or emotional.

“In education, student engagement refers to the degree of attention, curiosity, interest, optimism, and passion that students show when they are learning or being taught, which extends to the level of motivation they have to learn and progress in their education.”

Why do we care?

When a student starts feeling burdened or shows even the slightest levels of disinterest in your course, you may want to consider intervention. AY 2020/21 was exceptional because of the Covid Pandemic, teachers and students had to adapt very quickly to changing from predominantly face-to-face learning and teaching to blended or even wholly online learning.

Gauging engagement in face-to-face settings is difficult enough (contrary to popular opinion it is not easy to know if somebody is paying attention simply by glancing at their faces), and online learning brings its own set of added difficulties.

Yet how involved your students are in the course, ultimately decides the effectiveness of knowledge transfer and information retention - and the effectiveness of your online course set up!

How can we use Moodle to gauge engagement?