5 Simple ways to make your Online Learning stick

As our instructional designers know, there are countless hours put into creating a well made e-learning course.

You may have elected to utilise a pre-built content library rather than create your own content, but either way, the most important thing is that the learning sticks – and the learners walk away with a solid understanding of the main objectives.

Our clients have shared many theories on how to get learning to stick, but the strategies they have found the most success with are listed below:

1. WIIFM

The classic ‘’WIIFM’’ (or, What’s-In-It-For-Me) is the easiest way to make your learning more effective. You have to convey to participants how the information that they are about to receive is relevant to them and their situation. If you don’t create that connection up front, there will be reluctance from participants to change.

2. Practice Time

Just delivering the training isn’t enough, you have to give participants time to reflect and apply the information. Without real life application, the participants will ultimately forget the learning.

3. Share the Knowledge

Find a way to enable your users to share and participate in the learning. Allow for comments on the material, forums, sharing of personal experiences, all are acceptable ways to further involve the learner into the material. In the end, you’ll have an extremely valuable repository that others can learn from as well.

4. Break through Change Barriers

Everyone hates change, and in most cases participants will not embrace change until they have worked through why it’s a good idea for them on a personal level. You should try to create personal goals to maintain the desired behaviour change. Application opportunities and additional projects will provide the groundwork that enables behavioural change.

5. ‘Snackable’ Delivery

Learning is best received when it is able to be received in small, snackable portions. Deliver your training in small chunks, ideally no longer than 30 minutes, and deliver this content on a set schedule if possible. Creating a ritual of learning will condition people to become more receptive to the content.