How to make people engaged in learning online?
How to make people engaged in learning online
Table of contents
If you speak with anyone in the L&D (Learning and Development) space, they will tell you that engagement or lack thereof is critical in the success of any learning online initiative.
Research conducted by the Brandon Hall Group found that 80% of companies say that improving the learning experience is a priority. When we talk about the experience in learning, we’re really talking about engagement. Poor experiences mean poor engagement and poor engagement means a lower level of uptake of the subject matter.
Put simply if a training experience is boring and tedious, your employees won’t be engaged and won’t learn.
On the other hand, highly engaging online learning content will keep employees’ attention and results in higher levels of uptake of the information.
To keep people engaged in learning online you need to put some strategies and tools in place.
Know your learners
Taking the time to get to know your learners is critical. The goal of any learning program is to connect with your audience. However, it’s a challenge to connect with a remote audience and engage them in a purely digital environment.
That’s why you need to take the time to know your learners. This can take the form of surveys, focus groups or even interviews with existing employees or people who have gone through your learning regime.
In short, you need to analyse your audience and get to know their characteristics, habits, learning behaviours, and needs. That way you know exactly what they expect from the learning experience and what will engage them best.
Set clear learning objectives
Setting clear learning objectives at the beginning will help your learners see the benefits. It will help them see how they can develop and improve their skills. Objectives create the right environment for learner engagement.
Goals not only tell your new employees what they need to learn but they also give them an overview of where they are going and what topics they will cover.
Provide meaningful experiences
Finding meaning in new information helps learners connect more easily with it and also grasp knowledge in an effortless way.
To create meaningful learning experiences you need to focus on resonating with your learners’ personal experiences and evoking their emotions.
Adopting a learner-centred approach will help you address your needs and backgrounds. Scenarios that explore real-life situations will help your learners see how new learning is applicable to them.
Additionally, addressing your audience’s emotions is one of the most effective ways to increase their engagement levels. Well-chosen images, compelling stories, and small doses of humour stimulate interest, positive motivation, and emotional connectivity.
Less is more
Content overload will overload your new employees! Keeping the training sessions short is a good start but you should also weave in different media. Videos, text, graphics and more can help keep people engaged.
It also helps them to engage more easily with the material, as it is easier to connect with small chunks of information.
Let people explore
Your learners’ interest grows when they are allowed to navigate freely through their learning experience and scan the information themselves. Locked navigation is a cause of frustration.
Give the learner the choice of where to start – in a selection of topics and units. This allows them to pick relevant content instantly and become engaged in the program. You can guide them along the learning path with recommendations or some compulsory units. However, letting them choose the order in which they learn empowers and engages the learner. It gives your audience freedom and control.
At BAD, our team helps businesses with custom digital learning experiences to successfully upskill their teams. Get in touch today.
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How to make people engaged in learning online?
If you speak with anyone in the L&D (Learning and Development) space, they will tell you that engagement or lack thereof is critical in the success of any learning online initiative.
