9 Challenges with Online Learning (And How to Solve Them)

Last updated: November 23, 2023

Most people choose to attend the school closest to them to embark on an education. But with the internet, you can take online courses created by leading experts worldwide. If you’re planning on teaching online classes in the next while, you should look into some of the real challenges with online learning and understand how to resolve them so that you can become a better instructor for your students. Knowing what the issues of online learning are will help you create a curriculum and timeline for your e-learning experience to keep learners more engaged during e-learning, improve online communication, and absorb the knowledge they learn so they can apply it in the future. In this article, we will explore some of the challenges in online learning and how to solve them.

1. Technical Issues
2. Accessibility Issues
3. Lack of motivation
4. Limited social interaction for online students
5. Too much content at once
6. Students find it hard to stay focused
7. No personalized education experience
8. Can be expensive most of the time
9. Online assessments might not be received well

9 Challenges with Online Learning

1. Technical Issues

One of the common challenges in online learning is technical issues. Some people might have their internet crash during a class. Other times, your video conferencing tool is down, and sometimes, the tools you use differ from everyone’s devices. Fortunately, with Payhip’s online learning platform, you’ll find it has a reliable up-time, works on most devices, and students can stream and access the features of your online course with ease. Online learners will still have to be responsible for ensuring they have reliable internet access, a tablet, laptop, or desktop computer, and that’s about it. Some students will be unable to afford to have their own computer or access to the internet. There are low-income communities who consider these remote learning items luxuries and don’t have access to them. Financial concerns regarding the technical aspects of online learning are legitimate, making it a real challenge. Yet, the truth is that learning online can be more affordable overall compared to other academic learning facilities. The price you’ll pay for textbooks, a college or university degree, administration fees, and the repayment of financial aid can give students more money in the long run despite being in person. Yet, glossing over the fact that sometimes power outages happen, the internet is unstable, or someone can’t afford a secure internet connection all need to be considered when looking at the challenges of online education.

2. Accessibility Issues

There are learning challenges online that don’t happen as often in-person. One of those challenges is accessibility. In traditional classroom settings, students with disabilities have accommodations from their teachers in specialized classrooms. With online education, people will need to view videos with subtitles, have high-quality speakers, have alt tags on photos, and more to help them get the full experience despite their disability. Adding subtitles to your professional course content can be done in only a couple of clicks using video software tools. You can also ask participants what accommodations they’ll need from you so you can better support them and offer them the right solutions. Some of the special accommodations you offer might be appreciated by other students, too. For example, many people prefer consuming content with subtitles to follow along in case certain words aren’t precise or if they need their sound off for a moment. So, accessibility isn’t just about supporting those with different needs; it’s about offering an inclusive experience to everyone in your online course. You’ll be able to sell more courses by allowing any person to consume your content no matter what their unique needs for learning are when you put accessibility at the forefront.

3. Lack of motivation

One of the issues learners encounter with online learning is a lack of motivation. You don’t need a psychology or science degree to know that people can get bored while learning. That’s why it’s so crucial for you to create a course outline that adds interactive activities, fun speakers, engaging resources, time to do your online search about a topic, technology breaks, and more. Having a certificate that you e-deliver to students upon completion can also be a huge motivating factor. Making programs fun and engaging will help keep drop-off rates low. It’s not about delivering unique content; it’s about storytelling concepts in ways that people find easy to remember. It’s also about being enthusiastic in your delivery of the content. We all have the experience of a monotone teacher who made learning harder for us. Instead of talking about the theory of things, tell the story of how the idea came to be or use stories to make the theory more exciting. Providing many examples can also differentiate between a common explanation and one that resonates with students. The development of your course should include examples, stories, and digital content that excites students and makes learning fun.

4. Limited social interaction for online students

A common problem with online learning is that students have limited social interaction. In a program at a school setting, people can network with others, have face time with teachers, and ask questions throughout class. Fortunately, the online learning equivalent of this doesn’t need to be limited. Using technology, you can allow students to ask questions on videos where you can answer them. You can have office hours where anyone can ask questions virtually. You can also take questions live if you host live content for your online course. When you review a student’s content or assignments, you can create videos to help make the feedback more engaging while assisting them to understand what they did right or wrong on the project. Minimizing text-based feedback and introducing more videos will help ensure people understand your tone as well, so overall, it’s a good communication practice to do when teaching virtually.

5. Too much content at once

One of the challenges with online learning is that students can often feel overwhelmed by an abundance of course content. A 10-hour course can feel impossible to accomplish when done online compared to when it’s broken up in person. Time management is crucial to a student’s success in your course. If you want them to have this higher education, sometimes breaking content down will help them complete the course. We know students in university can spend four years in a classroom and then graduate. So, why does an online course that’s several hours long feel so hard to accomplish? Sometimes, students don’t know where to start, especially if there are multiple resources, like videos, documents, assignments, and more. Other times, finding time to hammer out all your content seems impossible.

The key to ensuring this digital format of learning gets students completing your course is to not only create short micro-content but also to drip content. Payhip offers a drip content feature if you sell courses on their platform. That means you can have new content come out weekly instead of having all content available from day one. In the case of distance learning, drip content may be inconvenient to those keen to learn and finish content fast. However, if your course is long, you might have a much higher completion rate if you drip out content regularly for online students to check out. Either way, you’ll have complete control over the online experience should you decide to release all or drip the content.

6. Students find it hard to stay focused

Some students struggle to stay focused when following your online course. This is an easy fix. Instead of creating hour-long lectures for people to watch attentively, create short two-minute videos to explain concepts. Keeping videos short will allow people to feel like they’re making fast progress through your course, making it easier to stay focused. Instead of needing to pause in the middle of an hour-long video, they can take a break after a short video ends, allowing them to get back into it with ease when they’re ready.

You can also schedule technology breaks, projects, assignments, or tasks for people to do in between specific videos to get the hands-on practice they need to get stuff done. Having short quizzes can also break up lessons to make sure people are grasping what you’re teaching. If you see people keep getting answers wrong, you’ll know to break up lessons shorter or explain concepts in greater detail, giving you the instructor the feedback you need to become better at teaching.

7. No personalized education experience

One of the challenges in online learning is that, most of the time, there’s no personalized education experience. In a classroom setting, a teacher may call on you by your name. They may even offer tutoring to help ensure you’ve truly mastered the content. You see the teacher daily and have direct access to their support during the class. You can ask questions at that exact moment, too. This is the reason why virtual learning needs to be a personalized education experience. Most of the time, the instructor pre-records all their content, and everyone gets the same set of videos.

With online classes, you can offer a personalized education experience, especially if using a platform like Payhip. On Payhip, you can build your online course website to include 1:1 coaching services. Students can schedule a time with you to chat about course content and receive more support. If you have a popular online course, you might have set availability for each day that students can sign up for as they take your online course for them to get more context, ask questions, and get to know you well enough to hear your thoughts about a teacher. Online teaching can be personalized for students through additional services, such as 1:1 coaching.

8. Can be expensive most of the time

Platforms that allow you to sell online courses often cost you a ton of money. You’ll need to pay for a monthly subscription, credit card fees, website themes, and marketing costs. Fortunately, Payhip is not only an affordable platform to host your online course on, but it’s also a great place to make money teaching online. Online schools and online programs on Payhip don’t have to pay for a monthly subscription; you can get all of the fantastic features to create courses, sell digital products, offer an affiliate program, and more on the Free Forever plan, which only charges a 5% transaction fee per sale. So, when you’re starting and don’t have any students enrolled in your courses yet, you won’t be losing money from your website builder. Try to Google a better platform for hosting your online course, and most won’t be as affordable as Payhip.

The whole point of creating a course isn’t to spend money; it’s to make it. If you have a Bachelor of Arts and you’re teaching a practical skill like how to write online for a national audience, you’ll want to get paid for your expertise. With your online course program, you can set your rates to get paid what you’re worth. You can also have a referral program where students promote your course to their friends. You can also send emails to your students or run promotional email campaigns when you add new lessons or create a new course altogether (such as an advanced version of your original class). You can also allow people to preview lessons, accept pre-orders before the official course launch date, and ensure your content is encrypted and protected.

9. Online assessments might not be received well

Giving feedback to students needs to be delivered with tact and respect. When we don’t have face time with an instructor, we might have difficulty assessing their tone. Online assessments should always be done in video format to ensure that learners understand the reason why they were given the feedback they were given. Creating videos will not only give students a sense of your tone, especially if you’re a more blunt person, but it will also provide students with more context that they can apply. Short and succinct feedback doesn’t work as well online as in person.

Conclusion

Online learning can have challenges, such as technical issues, expensive costs, communication challenges, and trying to keep students motivated and engaged while staring off at a screen. But there are solutions to ensuring you create an engaging online course people enjoy learning from. Building a website for your online course is the first step. With Payhip, you’ll be able to have a beautiful custom player for your online course website. Launch your online course by signing up for Payhip for free today.