As educators, when we think of increasing student engagement in higher education, we often picture getting students to actively participate in the learning experience. But meaningful engagement goes much deeper. I’ve found that students become more invested when they understand why they’re completing an activity, have opportunities to learn from mistakes, and connect the skills they’re developing in the classroom to the world around them.
Through my work in chemistry education and digital course design, I’ve explored how customizable online learning, active-learning activities, and artificial intelligence can work together to create a more stimulating and purposeful learning experience. My goal is not simply to help students complete assignments. It’s to help them practice critical thinking, clear communication, problem-solving, information analysis, and well-informed decision-making. With support from Cengage’s learning platforms, like WebAssign, and AI learning tools, students can build deeper engagement in the learning process and the skills necessary to succeed in the workforce.
Increasing student engagement with WebAssign
One of WebAssign’s greatest strengths is its flexibility. In my work helping other faculty build WebAssign courses, I’ve seen how this learning platform can be shaped around our learning outcomes, course sequence, teaching approach, and student needs. Rather than relying exclusively on a standard collection of end-of-chapter questions, you can design a more intentional pathway through the course.
Organization
Assignments can be organized by topic and aligned with specific learning outcomes. You can select questions that match the depth and emphasis of your courses, incorporate your own content, and add videos, tutorials, visualizations, or other resources. You can also use mastery requirements, assignment prerequisites, question pools, and targeted remediation to guide students’ progress through the content.
Customization
This degree of customization is especially valuable because not all students enter a chemistry course with the same level of academic preparation or confidence. A carefully designed course can help students identify and strengthen fundamental skills before moving into more complex applications. It also provides repeated opportunities to practice without making students feel that one unsuccessful attempt defines their ability.
Connection
The goal of this kind of course design is to create a connected learning experience where online practice, classroom instruction, active learning, and assessment reinforce one another. Online assignments should help students build the knowledge and confidence they need to participate more fully in class, while classroom problem-solving should strengthen the reasoning they use on future assignments, quizzes, and exams. When these elements are intentionally aligned, students can see how each course component serves a clear purpose within the larger learning process.
In my courses, students regularly solve problems independently, compare their reasoning with classmates, explain their solutions, and participate in moderated discussions about common errors. I might ask them to explain why they selected a particular problem-solving strategy, defend the number of significant figures in an answer, identify where an error occurred, or describe how they would revise an unsuccessful solution.
WebAssign can extend this learning process by providing directed practice, instant feedback, and additional opportunities to revisit concepts your students find challenging. Instead of treating homework as a task that ends once an answer is submitted, you can design assignments that encourage students to examine their reasoning, make corrections, and try another version.
These experiences build chemistry knowledge and strengthen skills essential for career readiness: communication, collaboration, analytical thinking, attention to detail, persistence, adaptability, and the ability to respond constructively to feedback.
Increasing student engagement with AI
Artificial intelligence introduces another opportunity to help students develop these skills. Cengage’s GenAI-powered Student Assistant, available in select WebAssign courses, is a study tool embedded within the learning experience. It’s designed to provide students with real-time, course-aligned support. Rather than simply revealing an answer, it leverages intelligent language models and exclusive Cengage content to help students work through a problem using step-by-step guidance, study strategies, and supplemental resources.
This distinction is important. The most productive role for AI in education is not to replace student thinking, but to support it. When students become stuck, they often need a prompt, a cue regarding a relevant concept, or help identifying the next step. The Student Assistant provides that help when required, while preserving emphasis on the student’s own reasoning.
For example, rather than asking an AI tool to complete a chemistry calculation, students can ask for help identifying which concept applies, determining what information is relevant, or understanding why an attempted solution was unsuccessful. The student remains responsible for carrying out the reasoning, checking the units, evaluating the result, and deciding whether the answer makes scientific sense.
AI-supported tutoring also has the potential to help make learning more accessible. Students may encounter difficulty studying at night, managing work or family responsibilities, or reviewing material when you or their teaching assistant (TA) are not immediately available. An embedded assistant cannot replace the instructor-student relationship. However, it delivers an additional layer of guidance that helps students make progress until they’re ready to seek further support.
Responsible AI in education
This type of interaction also provides you with an opportunity to teach students how to use AI responsibly. Students must understand that even a helpful AI response should be evaluated rather than automatically accepted. They should ask whether the explanation is consistent with course concepts, whether the units and calculations are correct, whether any assumptions are missing, and whether the reasoning is clear enough for another person to follow.
These questions transform the use of AI into an exercise in critical thinking. Students aren’t simply receiving information — they’re evaluating its quality and deciding how to use it.
Engaging future-ready students through purposeful learning
Students will enter workplaces where AI-supported systems are likely to be part of research, communication, data analysis, decision-making, and problem-solving. Their value will not come from copying a tool’s output. It will come from knowing how to ask productive questions, recognize incomplete or unreliable information, apply disciplinary expertise, and make responsible judgments.
That’s what makes interpersonal connection fundamental. As instructors, you provide context, encouragement, accountability, and an understanding of the individual student that technology cannot reproduce. The strongest approach is therefore not human instruction or AI assistance — it’s a thoughtful combination where technology supports the learning environment that you create.
I believe engagement increases when students have some ownership over how they strengthen their understanding. In my courses, Learning Activities are a graded component that gives students structured choices in how they engage with the material and seek academic support. Students may review or revise their notes, attend tutoring or a help session — essentially office hours — complete additional practice problems, work in WebAssign, or watch one of the prerecorded lecture videos I created during the pandemic. Those videos remain valuable resources, so I make them available rather than letting useful instructional material go unused. By offering several ways to earn Learning Activity credit, I can maintain clear expectations while giving students the flexibility to choose the form of support that best fits their individual learning needs. This encourages self-awareness and help-seeking — two skills that prove essential in higher education, the workplace, and lifelong learning.
A purposeful assignment can help students recognize gaps in their understanding, practice a challenging skill, learn from feedback, and develop the confidence to try again. An intentionally integrated Student Assistant can provide guidance without removing the student’s responsibility to think. Classroom activities can then give students opportunities to explain their reasoning, collaborate with others, and use their knowledge in new situations.
When these parts work together, students begin to see themselves as more than learners completing chemistry assignments. They begin to see themselves as developing professionals who can solve problems, communicate clearly, evaluate information, use technology appropriately, and adapt when an initial approach does not work.
That is the kind of engagement that equips students not only for the next exam, but also for the challenges they will encounter beyond the classroom.
Written by Theresa Carlson, Chemistry Professor at Cuyamaca College and Cengage Faculty Partner
