Do you currently have eLearning courses in your business?
If yes, have you ever considered if the learning is effective for your employees? It is time to think about this. You may have the content and training available, however, if it isn’t useful then neither you nor your employees are benefitting from it.
Without effective learning being provided then your employees will not be performing as expected which in turn is detrimental to your business.
Over the years, our team have recognised some of the signs where current eLearning may not be working as well as it could be. These issues are often resolvable, but if you are unaware of the signs, you are less likely to notice if it is not working effectively.
We wanted to share four common signs we tend to see when current eLearning is not working successfully…
The content is no longer relevant
Content can change and your learning needs to change with that. However, if you haven’t got up to date learning material then it will not be relevant to the learner taking in.
They will be behind the industry standards and potentially retaining learning practices that are no longer relevant or safe for current use. It could make all if not part of the course void as they would need retraining following being shown incorrect practice.
If you have eLearning courses that most likely will change, check in with experts or research the content to ensure that your course lines up with what can be seen. You could also pencil in continuous improvement cycles with your designer or eLearning vendor to make changes in the future or to form a completely new course when required.
The learning is not a two-way street
Nowadays learners are quickly understanding when they can ‘check-out’.
You must ask yourself this, have you put yourself in the learner’s shoes?
Understanding whether you’d take the course yourself will only help know if your employees would also partake in it. If you don’t go through it then observe someone else, when do they start to become disengaged?
It’s important to explain to your audience why the learning is beneficial to them. Considering these questions will require that you think about how engaging and successful your course is to consume. If you find there are gaps, or the course is just not successful this can be resolved through redesigning or restructuring the course to support these factors.
The content isn’t digestible
You can have as much high-quality content as possible but, if it is not presented in a digestible way then it is likely the learner is not going to retain that information.
No matter how informative it is, you may find it is still unsuccessful. This suggests it is not the content but, the way it is being shared.
There tends to four main points to consider in relation to this and these are:
1. Is it easy to access?
2. Are there simple steps and explanations throughout?
3. When new words, tasks, or behavioural changes are mentioned, are the benefits explained?
4. Are the slides/pages too crowded?
The general rule from this is that less is more. Keeping content simple and easy to understand ensures that all learners can follow content easily, taking in the relevant information. If you’ve answered these questions and found it doesn’t follow this pattern the design of your course may need improvement.
There is no variety in the content in your eLearning courses
Engagement can be lost quite simply through lack of variety. Going through slides and slides of text can be exhausting, losing the learner’s interest within minutes.
Think about the ratio between text and images, don’t overflow a slide with text. But also, don’t overuse images, consider other forms of media. If you continuously follow the same pattern when it comes to the format, then it’ll become repetitive.
Your eLearning might not be as effective as it could be due to this. Start including video, animation, infographics, and other forms of media to mix it up and explain the content instead of using text. If you are not confident with this, get in touch with us for support and design expertise.
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