How to set your school up for engagement success in 2025

Is your department or school struggling to keep students engaged with their learning? You’re not alone. Research reveals that nearly 40% of students are disengaged in the classroom.

It makes sense, considering a whopping 91% of Aussie learners aged 14 to 17 own a mobile device. Whether at school or home, today’s learners are navigating a world of multiple screens, incessant alerts and endless streams of social media content. 

For educators, the rise of this ‘TikTok Generation’ presents very real engagement challenges. With attention spans shortening, keeping learners immersed in dense, complex topics for an entire 50-minute lesson can be a difficult task. 

But with challenge comes opportunity. As a department lead, you have a crucial role to play in empowering your teaching staff to find new, creative ways to engage students. In this blog, we’ll be exploring how online learning can help set your school up for engagement success in 2025 and what you can do to meet the needs of today’s learners. 

In this article, we’ll explore:

• The challenges teachers face when teaching today’s learners
• Why educators need to teach in sync with students today
• How to use online learning to boost student engagement in 2025

The challenges educators face when teaching today’s learners

In 2025, students are mobile-first, video-centric and accustomed to emerging technologies, like artificial intelligence (AI). From social media feeds to search engines, learners can get answers to their burning questions instantly. With so much information in the palm of their hands, it’s no surprise that educators are noticing a rise in student disengagement with lengthy, complex learning materials. In fact, teachers are facing a number of key challenges, including:

• Mobile phone usage is growing: Recent studies show that half of young adults (ages 11 to 17) use their smartphones for over four and a half hours daily. The same study found that adolescents receive upwards of 200 notifications, with nearly a quarter (23%) of these alerts arriving during school hours. 
  
• Short-form video is shrinking attention spans: Nearly two-thirds (58%) of teenagers are daily users of TikTok, a social media platform known for its bite-size videos. The average TikTok video lasts just 42.7 seconds, with the platform encouraging creators to keep videos even shorter (just 20 to 30 seconds) to drive peak user engagement.‍
• Learners are rapidly adopting emerging tech: Today’s learners are early adopters of emerging technology, like Generative AI. Recent studies reveal that ChatGPT is the most popular GenAI for Gen Z Aussies, with nearly half (49%) using ChatGPT regularly. ‍
• Educators need to adapt with limited time and resources: Finding new ways to keep students engaged only adds to Australian educators' burdens. Over 35% of teachers plan to leave the industry before retirement, with high workloads cited as one of the top factors driving more educators to leave the profession. 

Why educators need to teach in sync with students today 

Learning how to stay focused and beat digital distractions is an essential life skill for learners. In a tech-first world dominated by dopamine hits and instant gratification, the technology habits students develop in high school will set them up for long-term success in life after school. In practical terms, here’s why educators should adapt lessons and learning material to meet the needs of today’s learners:

• Students are digital natives who are going to be using technology as part of their learning journey, whether teachers actively encourage it or not. ‍
• Tech in the classroom is here to stay, meaning educators need to engage with and embrace this new technology to understand its potential advantages.‍
• Tech can deliver more engaging experiences, with our 2024 Tech In Schools report finding that 74% of educators believe that technology enhances the learning experience for students. Plus, 78% of teachers said technology helps to support differentiation.

By embracing rather than resisting technology in the classroom, students can get up to speed on new, complex topics—without wading through pages of technical jargon in a textbook alone. The key to getting this process right is to ensure technology is deployed in targeted ways, with the right guardrails and boundaries in place.  

But teachers shouldn’t be left to figure out how to adjust their lesson plans and revision material alone. Instead, Heads of Department (HODs) need to put the right support structures in place to give educators access to engaging, curriculum-aligned content that can be deployed flexibly both inside and outside the classroom. And that’s where Atomi comes in.

How to use online learning to boost student engagement in 2025

As an online learning platform purpose-built for high schools, Atomi is designed to engage students and empower teachers. Packed with curriculum-aligned content, Atomi uses chunking of information, engaging video content and interactive lessons to help students easily grasp new concepts. 

Every single element of the platform is carefully curated to align with pedagogical best practices. From our clean platform interface to our minimalist quiz design, we help students combat cognitive overload by covering information in digestible chunks. 

Plus, our jargon-free text is written to resonate with high school students. Even our video content is strategically capped at six to eight minutes long—meaning we get straight to the point to deliver content that’s most critical to understanding and communicating a topic. 

In practical terms, here’s exactly how your school can use Atomi to increase student engagement and improve academic performance across every cohort in your department. 

1. Go beyond textbooks with dynamic, interactive content

Every student learns differently. While reading a chapter of a textbook might work for some students, others may struggle to grasp difficult concepts with text-only resources. 

That’s why we use a range of content formats to deeply engage students. From short, sharp videos to interactive quizzes, Atomi is built to boost understanding—no matter a student's preferred learning style. From worked examples to step-by-step tutorials, every video we produce breaks down complex curriculum-aligned topics in language that will hit the mark with students.

At Atomi, we really like to put students and their engagement first in our content. We're made to engage the learners of today, and that approach informs everything we do. For example, we're deliberately using videos and online interactive products rather than textbooks to offer a more engaging learning experience.
- Darcy Campbell, Humanities Team Lead at Atomi 

2. Assign differentiated learning materials with ease

Differentiation is a high-impact teaching strategy. But, without technology in the classroom, it can be incredibly difficult and time-consuming for educators to deliver tailored lessons or revision materials to each student. 

The classroom now is more dynamic than it ever has been. Creating lessons that engage everybody in the room at one time is the biggest challenge for teachers. You’re not only dealing with varied interests, but you’re also dealing with varied abilities and even varied enthusiasm for a subject.
- Sarah-Eleni Zaferis, Teacher and School Enablement Leader at Atomi

In our 2024 Tech In Schools report, we found that 70% of educators believe that online learning platforms can help students who are falling behind. Plus, 73% of educators believe that online learning is a game-changer for catering to the unique needs of neurodiverse students. 

With Atomi, educators can easily differentiate instructions in a few clicks, whether that’s challenging learners with extension tasks or providing additional resources to students who need further support. 

3. Track classwide progress and academic performance in real-time 

For teachers, assessing whether students have grasped a new concept can be a time-consuming process. With Atomi, educators can gain real-time performance data to understand exactly how their class is going. 

From active recall quizzes to topic-based tests and even practice exams, Atomi captures meaningful data about how every student is tracking. Plus, it’s easy to identify class-wide trends to inform upcoming lesson plans. That way, educators can ensure lessons are crafted to engage students in the topics that matter most. 

As a HOD, this performance data can help you keep tabs on how every classroom and cohort is tracking in your department. From there, you can make swift, strategic changes to better support your educators and improve the performance of your students, too. 

4. Offer instant feedback loops using the power of AI 

Providing timely feedback is key to getting students to mastery sooner. With Atomi AI, this feedback loop is radically easier and shorter, ensuring students receive instant personalised feedback in response to short-answer questions. 

Rather than waiting days or weeks to receive feedback, students can gain immediate, specific guidance at their moment of need. Plus, educators can follow up and assign tailored revision tasks in Atomi to help learners engage with material relevant to their learning needs, helping get them back on track. 

Keep Reading: Looking for more practical tips and tricks to share with your educators? Discover how to transform your classrooms with high-impact teaching strategies (HITS). 

Want to boost student engagement across your department?

Dive into our head of department’s guide to boosting student engagement, packed with proven pedagogical principles and teaching strategies to engage the learners of today. Download your free copy. 

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