Not sure if online driver’s ed is the right choice for your teen? While every person learns differently, there are some major advantages to learning online. Aceable uses instructional design principles to create effective courses for driver’s ed students. Let’s get into the science of how.
Is Elearning Effective?
But first, let’s talk about elearning in general. How does it compare to classroom learning? While many people assume people learn better in the classroom, a recent study found that students retained more information from an online course than a live lecture.
Learning online has several advantages over classroom learning.
Work at Your Own Pace
Aceable’s app lets a student set their own pace for learning. In a classroom, every learner would be expected to spend the same amount of time on every subject. People who learned quickly or had prior knowledge about a subject might start to feel bored and stop paying attention, while students with learning differences might struggle.
Learning online lets every student choose what material to breeze through and what to spend more time reviewing. This customized learning experience helps ensure that nobody’s bored and nobody’s rushed.
Learn on Your Own Schedule
In a classroom, students have to sit down and learn during class hours determined by the school. Those times may or may not be your teen’s best times for learning. Also, it’s difficult for some people to sit and listen to a lecture after a long day at school.
With online learning, teens can choose the best time for them to learn. Night owls can study in the evenings. Early birds can study in the morning. People who need to take a break and go for a walk every half hour can do that. Students can learn on the weekend, during study period at school, or even waiting in line.
Busy teens with lots of activities can fit their driver’s ed in around their schedules. By letting students choose the best time for their classes, you’re giving them a better chance of retaining the important information.
Fewer Distractions
For some learners, classrooms can be difficult because they are full of distractions. There are many other students asking questions, goofing off, or chatting. A classroom environment can be loud and the seating is often uncomfortable. With online learning, a student can completely control their environment. They can have the lighting, seating, temperature, and level of quiet that suits them best.
Need to listen to music to concentrate? Online learning allows that. Have a sensitivity to fluorescent lights? No more headaches when you’re studying at home. Online learning lets students work in the environment most conducive to learning for them specifically.
Aceable’s Approach to Learning
Beyond the advantages of online learning in general, Aceable utilizes instructional design best practices to ensure that our driver’s ed courses are effective teaching tools. Here are some of the ways we do that.
Bite-Sized Lessons
Our courses are broken up into bite-sized “chunks” of content to keep students from getting overwhelmed. This prevents what’s called cognitive overload: when the brain struggles to retain information because it’s doing too much at once.
By providing content in digestible bites, the student is able to transfer information from their short-term memory to their long-term memory more effectively.
Interactive Interstitial Review
Another advantage online learning has over classroom learning is that it can be interactive. Instead of passively listening to a lecture, in an app a student can answer questions and play games.
Aceable takes full advantage of this, packing our course full of pop-up questions and other interactive learning experiences. This is what is known in learning science as “interstitial review.” That means that the student is quizzed on the material they’re learning as they’re learning it. This helps cement things in their memory, and alerts a student in the moment if they’re misunderstanding or failing to grasp a concept. Active learning is much more effective than passive learning.
Instructional Images and Video
Aceable’s courses have a ton of instructional images and videos. These engage the learner and help illustrate difficult concepts. Breaking up text with images keeps the brain interested. Most teens spend a lot of time watching videos and looking at images in their social media, so these instructional modes are a great way to keep them from getting bored and disengaging.
Additionally, for people who have trouble retaining information that they read, video and instructional images ensure they’re getting the content delivered to them in a medium that works.
An Engaging Course
It seems obvious that if you’re enjoying learning, you’re going to retain more information, and yet so often students are presented material in a dull and lifeless way. Aceable’s courses aim to make learning engaging and fun. We employ a conversational tone and sprinkle in silly jokes and puns. Are they mostly groaners? Sure! But it makes learning more fun than a dry lecture.
The courses are taught in the voice of Ace, our friendly robot. Students love Ace (they even make fan art!) and his gentle guidance makes them want to make Ace proud.
Games, videos, and scenarios keep learners having a good time. And that not only helps them retain the information, it makes them want to actually finish their course.
Ready to Get Started?
As you can see, we work hard to create fun, engaging, and instructionally sound courses for our driver’s ed students. We want being an Aceable driver to be a badge of honor! Our Learning Experience team is deeply committed to making our courses the best in the biz.
Ready to start your teen’s driver’s ed journey? We’d love for you to join us!