Millennials have shorter attention and concentration spans, as compared to baby boomers or Generation X due to another form of information consumption. Instead of memorizing the dates, formulas, and numbers, millennials note the addresses of websites, where all needed data is available at their fingertips.
Understanding Millennial Learners
Millennials are easily engaged with new and interesting topics but are not interested in completing tasks that require a lot of time. Research by SurveyU showed that 15 minutes is the longest period millennials are willing to dedicate to a mundane task.
Why Engagement Matters
The question all MOOC providers try to answer is how to increase the engagement of millennials (and the course completion ratio as a result). Building a psychological portrait of an average millennial can help with this task and prepare your company for working with millennials.
Key Characteristics
- Millennials are great at multitasking but are easily distracted if not kept in constant engagement.
- They are very social and like to keep in touch with their colleagues, friends, and family using social networks, instant messengers, and email.
- Millennials constantly seek positive feedback and appreciate instant gratification in order to feel useful and demanded.
- They are lifelong learners who are always on a quest to discover something new and interesting, develop new skills, and acquire new expertise. According to the White House Council of Advisors report, 61% of millennials completed college and continue to educate themselves.
The last point is the most important for the Edtech industry, given that in 2025, millennials will make up 75% of workers (this is why it’s important to understand how to engage millennials in the workplace). According to College Atlas research, millennials comprise 54% of all eLearning students.
Top Tips for Engaging Millennials
Along with millennials’ preference to use gadgets and adopt new ideas, this logically leads to several recommendations on how to make online course content more engaging for millennials and which strategies to engage millennials work.
Make it secure and easy to use
Adding third-party authentication and single sign-on features allows students to sign in using their social network accounts and use one set of credentials to access all services on your MOOC platform. Suitable authentication simplifies access to the course and increases the chance of its successful completion.
Make it fun and interactive
Add tokens for course completion and other motivations. According to Troy Dean’s report, adding tokens for stage completion along with other interactive elements helps increase the completion rate by 500%. Use various types of gamification for your own course. Quizzes and drag-and-drop activities improve learner engagement regardless of their generation.
Make it mobile
Millennials use smartphones much more actively than other generations. In fact, smartphones take 29% of millennial daytime spending vs 8% with friends and 9% with co-workers (according to Bank of America research). Therefore, it is best to make your content consistent with what millennials consume daily. Here is a list of millennials’ beloved apps as a reference.
Make it flexible
Tough deadlines discourage millennials in training, who prefer learning at a suitable time and pace rather than following a strict plan. The structure of the course should allow learners to switch to several subtopics within the main topic, move on to the next lesson to take a step forward, and then return to the previous one.
Make it bite-sized and relevant
Divide your course content into small nodes, easy to comprehend and quick to complete. This millennials engaging strategy helps keep learners focused. Bite-sized modules, often lasting 5-10 minutes each, are easily accessible on mobile devices and perfectly suited for on-the-go learning.
Make it as social as possible
According to the American Press Institute review, 69% of millennials get news at least once a day, with most of them using social networks like Facebook (88%), YouTube (83%) and Instagram (50%). Adding an ability to share their achievements through social channels and communicate with other course participants through discussion groups increases the sense of involvement in a major cause, which greatly improves the millennials’ engagement.
Case Studies: Successful Engagement Strategies
Want to see how to engage millennials with eLearning? Dive into these case studies:
- Custom eLearning Mobile App Based on Open edX Technology describes an app for King Khalid University that uses mobile devices to deliver a better learning experience.
- Harrow details an LMS for Harrow International Schools that focuses on user-friendliness and mobile compatibility.
- Custom LMS for a Network of English Language Schools explores the challenges and solutions in creating a custom LMS for a network of English language schools.
Wrapping Up
We believe that all MOOC providers should tailor their eLearning solutions according to millennials’ preferences. These 6 tips will help you engage millennials and receive profitable results from your online courses.
Whether you choose to use gamification to improve course outcomes or adopt a mobile-first approach to developing course content, each option helps engage millennials by addressing the gaps in their mindset and learning style.
If you already have course content ready, we encourage you to try hosting it on our Tanuki platform for online courses. With Tanuki, every educator has a tool to create, manage, and deliver online courses easily.
