I don’t usually blog about learning, because it’s not really a topic in its own right: you don’t really learn anything interesting about learning by reading about learning – you find out interesting things about learning by looking, for example, at developments in cognitive psychology, memetics, philosophy or online trends.
But I thought I should blog some thoughts about why and how we are creating the best elearning programmes: this year we won both the top UK awards for best online content (WOLCE and elearning) and have done so a few times in the past.
1. Perhaps the first thing to say is this: forget about all the instructional design mumbo-jumbo. Most of it is patently unsupported, the rest is at best thought-provoking.
2. A good starting point is to think about the emotional journey that you want to take your learners on. Your objective is, after all, not to get information across but to make people care enough to do something differently (even if that is looking up information). You can sketch this journey as an emotional line if you like: hopefully it doesn’t ‘flatline’ like most courses, or start with a peak and peter out thereafter. A good course looks more like a mountain range. Think about great speeches you have heard, good movies, memorable plays – this is more like what you are trying to create. This applies even if what you are trying to create is a humble IT training course – I spend quite a lot of time capturing screens, and bringing this to life with commentary is a real challenge in itself. And it’s much more than ‘being funny’: is the tone right, do people feel a sense of belonging, does the course connect with their core values, does it feel real?
3. Start to think in terms of the ‘rhythm’ of your course – learn to spot those bits where it is just dull for several minutes. Try to break up the rhythm – people like surprises and exploration (insert long story about dopamine). Variety is your friend.
4. Try to look beyond tired expressions like ‘engaging’ or ‘interaction’: what you want is ‘traction’ – something that grips your audience – and things that lack interaction can have traction, just as interactions often fail to grip anyone. Expectation failure – one of the few traditional concepts I have found worthwhile – helps at the start of courses: people are often only ready to learn when they realise they have something to learn.
5. Remember that when you want to say something, how you say it is the most important thing. Nobody believes those creepy emails they get from Internal Comms. Very few people like being patronised or lectured. Probably the most powerful message is one delivered passionately and honestly (i.e. unscripted) by your colleagues – or someone you really respect. Recently I have seen some really high-budget movies that just failed to stir me: the acting was poor, the emotions inauthentic. I have also seen TED talks – with no slides – that moved me to tears (Chris Abani, for example)
6. For this reason, video is a good medium – we unconsciously mirror the emotions of the people we observe, and these feeling in turn are encoded along with the information – in fact it is largely this that gives information its sticking power. People are interested in interesting people. We remember best the enthusiastic teachers.
7. Tell stories. Ever since Schank story-telling has been a topic that bobs up and down in learning conversations – but generally people fail to question why storytelling works: it’s because it attaches emotional and contextual cues to information, and suits our natural mechanisms for information storage. Instead of thinking about pictures to illustrate the objectives you want to get across, default to thinking about where you can find someone who personifies the point you want to make, and capturing their spark.
8. Polish your work. Sadly, a big part of the perception of quality is in the design. The bad news is that if you don’t have a clue about graphic design, it is unlikely that anyone will ever think your courses are really great – the good news is that it is becoming easier by the day to learn about good design (I have some good links on delicious) and to practice it (Jane Hart’s ‘100 tools’ will get you off to a flying start). In truth, our suppliers often deserve credit for this (they rarely miss an opportunity).
9. Get the text off the screen (as much as possible). Why does news have a newsreader? Why not just bullet-points? (I’m sure you can complete the rest of the argument). Try to create a rich visual experience. Human brains are devoted in large part to processing visual data, and making sense of things in 3D environments. Learning in its basic form is contextualised – so ideally learning should be in the form of a ‘journey’ – where you go different places and learn different things (some interesting research on chimp learning around this).
10. Know your tribes. Connecting with your audience means getting to know them. You may well be able to make a good guess, but you won’t always know what they will respond best to unless you find out more about the experiences they naturally gravitate towards.
Broadly, there are two classes of learning: the stuff that people want to know, and the stuff you want them to know. These principles apply to the latter – in a world where people can hunt down skills and knowledge if they care enough there is a diminishing demand for ‘push’ learning – but all the more need for it to hit the mark.
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