In our technology filled world, learners expect immediate content in attractive, engaging packages. They have neither the time (nor inclination) to sit through hours of click next, fancy PowerPoint. They want a fast-paced, targeted training package that delivers the knowledge and skills they need, when they need it.
One of the easiest and most effective ways to do this, is by making learning personal.
The One-size-fits-all approach might seem simpler, but often, it means learning that lacks creativity and is less effective. Generic courses separate the learner from the content by restricting them to a linear path. Personalization brings learners closer to the subject.
Personalization is about more than just adding a name to the course, or choosing an avatar to sit in the corner of the page. Its’s about delivering training with the learner at the center.
No More Vague Objectives
Corporate objectives are an important part of business growth. They help drive strategy, marketing, sales and development. But when they’re applied to learning and development, they lose their focus. Corporate objectives are designed for the organization. Learning is about the individual.
Self-development is an important part of a role. People like learning that facilitates growth, improves their prospects and makes them better at their jobs. Reframing corporate objectives to present a benefit to employees can feed into this. “Deliver 15% growth in Q4” could become “facilitate skills development and training to help deliver 15% growth in Q4.”
Creating a space for self-assessment and personal goal setting keeps training focused on the learner. It becomes about what they want to learn, not what their organization mandates for them.
Targeted Content
For training to be truly effective, it must deliver the knowledge and skills a learners needs. E-Learning is often created using an assumed level of understanding. This can be misleading and makes it more likely that those with less knowledge miss out, and those with more knowledge get bored.
Existing understanding can be hard to gauge, but a carefully crafted diagnostic quiz or poll at the start of a course can help you identify strengths, weaknesses and knowledge gaps. Armed with this knowledge, you can tailor content to suit the individual requirements of learners and target the specific gaps in their capability. This makes training more relevant and combines well with self-assessments and personal goal setting as learners can see tangible growth and development.
Catering for Individual Job Roles
In a fast moving business environment, organizations can’t afford to have staff away from their work for long. This means generic, linear e-Learning isn’t effective, especially if it isn’t directly related to their role. For example, during the role out of a compliance initiative it might not be necessary for each person to have the same level of knowledge.
Tailoring content to a specific job roles helps reduce the amount of time staff away from their work and it means you can provide the right training for the right role, without overloading the learner.
By allowing the learner to select their job function or role right at the start and tailoring their content, they will work through it far quicker, retain more information and find it more relevant. If you audience is diverse, their training must be able to adapt.
Give Learners Control
Mandatory training is often a core part of an onboarding process. Whether it’s health and safety, fire safety or HR policies, sometimes training just needs to get done. But if it’s soft skills or non-essential training, then it is the perfect opportunity to return control to the learner.
Giving learners control over their training puts the emphasis back on their personal growth and development. While linear training is often delivered to ensure learners all receive the same level of training, a lot of content can be delivered more effectively using a more exploratory, holistic method.
A range of PDFs and whitepapers could be turned into interactive resources or short e-Learning modules to create a knowledge bank that learners can dip into whenever they need it. This knowledge bank could also be used for learners to develop their own learning pathways. Delivering content in this also allows you to make the most of new learning trends in micro-learning, where learners use bite-size learning units to up-skill on a just in time model, often using mobile devices or tablets and responsive courses.
Cater for different learning styles
It’s a well-known fact that we all learn differently. This poses a particular problem for training providers as a single course is unlikely to cater for the needs of every learner, but compromising can lead to courses that are less than effective.
Creating a learning programme for each learning style is impractical, but it is possible to deliver targeted training using multiple delivery methods. By curating content in such a way that you can quickly and easily transplant it into different formats you can cater more effectively for the different learning styles. For example:
Video based learning is visual and can help you condense complex content into a much smaller, more accessible package. Visual learners can quickly consume content and you have a visually engaging resource for other learners.
If a learner prefers to dig deeper into content, then resource rich, interactive learning can use the same content to guide learners on a journey, allowing them to follow links for topics that interest them, but staying high level when they would prefer to move on.
Or, for learners that prefer the hands-on approach, scenarios of games will allow learners to practice their skills and new found knowledge in real-world situations.
The One-size-fits-all approach is fast becoming obsolete. Learners want more control over their development and they want to be able to do it whenever and where ever they want. Personalization is a great first step towards delivering content that allows Learners to achieve their goals.
Here at Good e-Learning we create completely customized, mobile friendly learning experiences, combining instructional design expertise, high quality motion graphics, and the latest technology to transform your content into a totally bespoke learning program. Visit our site for more details about our service and offerings.
