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discussion is the key to engaging online courses

I have an idealized view of life in Europe: a limited workday and unlimited cultural enrichment. When leading a workshop in Berlin in late November, I was surprised to hear that while many European countries require by law that training take place during the work week, most people take their online courses evenings or weekends, just like my colleagues and I do. "Too much else to do during the day," "Too many distractions and interruptions," and "I learned more at the off-site courses" were the familiar refrains.

However, I heard some tales of great experiences with these online courses, despite the off-hours. The common thread in all these stories was the presence of discussion, synchronously or asynchronously. And the people taking the courses after hours didn't mind because they were having fun. They were enthusiastic about how much they were learning.

In contrast, I wasn't raving about my most recent experience as an online student. The course I took used case studies, which, as I learned in graduate school, can be a launching point for discussion—but not in this self-paced, asynchronous course. When I finished the course, I thought about how much more compelling it would have been to analyze and discuss these cases with collegues. To make matters worse, the answers to the course's quizzes were obvious—unlike in real life, where problems tend to be complex and difficult to solve. Overall, the course simply didn't engage me.

With the current focus on cost reduction, corporate trainers sometimes forget that no student will learn without being engaged. (Additionally, an engaged student is relatively unconcerned with when learning takes place, such as on a Saturday afternoon.) The self-paced, asynchronous "catalog courses" that dominate online training may be inexpensive, but they are not the best way to learn. What I heard recently from a number of Europeans was that they miss not only discussion but also informal learning and networking when they take self-paced courses. Traditional off-site courses and well-designed online courses facilitate the structured discussions that enrich and provide context to learning, and that makes learning enjoyable. We must remember that successful workplace learning is necessarily social.

In theory, catalog courses give students unlimited opportunities to learn. But learners need motivation. What better way to achieve this than by making sure everyone enjoys the learning process? If a course will help someone perform better at work, it is worth the investment to design or redesign that course to incorporate discussion. The result may be an enjoyable, engaging, and successful learning experience.