Converting your e-learning requires more than technology. There needs to be a change in mindset regarding how people learn. To help your learners succeed, consider pivoting away from long courses with an evaluation at the end. Short chunks of content with frequent, small e-learning quizzes will help users quickly grasp the materials.
A Necessary Change in Mindset
Effective digital training requires new ways of thinking and learning. Evaluate your training materials, and determine what pieces are best suited for an e-learning course. Prioritize materials that are highly engaging or that would work when developed into another type of content.
For example, do you have content that would work well when gamified or information that could be easily made into a branched scenario? Be willing to reimagine all your training materials, as adopting new ways of training and assessment can prove cost-effective for your business at scale. After evaluating all your content, determine where you can add quick assessments to ensure that your learners are holding onto the knowledge that you’re providing them.
Longer training courses can be repurposed and redesigned into multiple smaller sessions with short assessments at the end of each one. E-learning in small doses is efficient and can be done from anywhere at any time.
Learning designed for fast sessions can help your learners with accessibility and availability. Users can access the training from their phones, tablets, or computers while riding the bus or sitting down for a few sessions between checking emails. Giving people more options for working through training at their own pace will increase the number of users who finish their training.
A Modern Tactical Approach
Start preparing your content for shorter e-learning courses. First, chunk content into small pieces that are easy for audiences to digest. Preparing your current content before you create your course will help you get a good idea for how to organize the materials that you already have. You may not need to make any additional content. However, don’t just chop up current content and add in a few quizzes. Take your e-learning chunks, and turn them into highly focused, easy-to-get-through pieces of content. Be mindful when you condense your courses, and stay true to the learning outcomes that you are training for.
Second, place assessments throughout the content, and add them in more frequently than in ILT. Frequent, short e-learning quizzes will boost knowledge retention and the general effectiveness of your courses.
You should also consider micro-learning. It’s not simply content chunking, but rather a specific type of e-learning that requires careful planning and design. Micro-learning can contain all the same elements as any other e-learning, such as text, video and audio, games, infographics, and assessments. Add micro-assessments throughout the course to easily test your user’s progression. Although the benefits are numerous, do keep in mind that this type of learning may not be best for complex or in-depth topics.
Why Micro-assessments Matter
First, brief bursts of virtual learning are better for audiences. A short course with micro-learning assessments will maintain learner engagement and help with knowledge retention. In fact, many traditional forms of training have the opposite effect, called the forgetting curve. So, try out micro-assessments to build super engaging training courses. Engaged learners mean happy clients.
Second, shorter training sessions are more focused on the learner’s needs. Micro-learning can be used to fill in employee knowledge gaps without their needing to attend a long, drawn-out training course. With brief bursts of training content, you can keep employees focused and engaged so they can get through the content quickly and easily.
Better yet, shorter training can reduce training expenses. For example, micro-learning can often be built using current training materials, which means smaller development costs. Even if you decide to build a micro-learning course from scratch, you can design a full course with micro-assessments in a much shorter amount of time than a traditional course. It also means employees don’t have to take an extended period of time from work just to take a long training course.
Conclusion
Turn your ILT into an online course that will help your learners succeed. A change in mindset surrounding e-learning and new tactics will build engagement and cut costs. Add smaller chunks of content and more frequent, short e-learning quizzes to your courses. This type of e-learning will save you money and help you build a training business that exceeds customer expectations.
Here at Firmwater, we don’t just sell an LMS for training providers. We partner with them, giving them the tools and insights that they need to implement the best practices in e-learning course development, business growth, and delivery. When they need help, we don’t let them wade through forums and chatbots.
Ready to use an LMS that’s designed for the way YOU work, with a team dedicated to YOUR needs? Book a no-obligation consultation directly with our team today!