Designing an excellent eLearning course to educate and train your employees is only half of the battle. The other half, and the much more difficult one, is getting your employees to remember and apply what they learned. With so many competing demands for our attention, it can be hard to retain information and then, back on the job, apply it. Why do learners forget what they learned, and what steps can you take to ensure better retention?
Lack of Focus
The environment plays a large role in whether or not learners forget what they learned because it can prevent learning from happening at all. If a student is not devoting enough attention during the course, or they feel that it is unimportant so they are not taking it seriously, they might fail to capture the information. A lack of focus can also come into play if too much information is packed into a lesson and their brain needs to choose what to remember.
Shallow Processing
This is another common reason why learners forget what they learned, and it occurs when people are presented information and cannot make a connection between it and a reason why it is important. Learners need to know HOW they will apply the information when they get back to their jobs. If you can create the WIIFM, What’s In It For Me, learners are more likely to connect to the content and it instantly becomes easier for us to recall.
Not Seeing the Big Picture
When you plan your eLearning courses, do you say what the parts of the machine are, or do you take time to allow the student to assemble the machine and understand how the parts contribute to the whole? Another reason why students forget what they learned is a lack of ability to see the bigger picture and the importance of the material. When they learn how instead of what, it’s easier to remember the content taught.
The Wrong Order
Finally, another reason why your eLearners forget what they learned is that the order of the information was not optimized. When you write a paper in school, you write an introduction, make points and then end with a conclusion. If your course is not in the right order, the points are not in a logical flow that is easy to follow, or it doesn’t follow a story, or a scenario, the information might be forgotten as a result.
Ensure Employees Don’t Forget What They Learned with Zenith Performance Solutions
Zenith Performance Solutions wants to transform the ways that you and your employees learn. We offer a comprehensive range of training course design services, including updating existing courses and consulting. We work with companies of every size to create innovative and instructionally sound materials that boost employee performance and satisfy your objectives. To learn more, please contact us by calling (970) 409-4013.