Key Ingredients Of Effective eLearning

With 29% of workers finding online content uninspiring, or even just struggling to find relevant eLearning, designing engaging and effective eLearning is more important than ever.

A crucial aspect of effective eLearning is understanding your target audience. You need to be able to influence them in a way that improves their performance, and ultimately drive change. If your learners are stuck for time, for example, then the eLearning needs to be delivered in a short format that is easy to understand.

As well as researching the behaviours of your audience and their particular needs, you also need to think modern and innovative too. Your eLearning needs to take into account the habits of modern learners, to move your learning forward and keep you ahead of the competition. Let’s have a look in detail at the main key ingredients of effective eLearning.

The 5 Essential Ingredients:

1. Relevance

Taking a ‘one-size fits all’ approach to eLearning is a big no-no. Modern learners want personalised eLearning content that meets their individual needs, not just an off-the-shelf job. 70% of learners will leave if the eLearning is not optimised for their needs, which is a huge figure! Not only is it vital to capture the attention of learners to begin with, eLearning should be personalised and focused on actions individuals need to take to improve. A targeted learning experience will always generate better pass rates than a broader format.

2. Engagement

Now it is important to understand that engagement isn’t the same as interacting. The best way to engage with learners is to create content that connects with them, and motivates them to take action. An immersive learning experience will create an emotional connection with learners, making them feel part of the journey. Storytelling within eLearning is a great example of this.

Engagement can also come from encouraging learners to participate, whether that be via a discussion, practising, reflecting or physically doing. Learning and practice are the foundations of effective learning, and usually occurs when learners are involved and stimulated.

3. Responsive

eLearning content needs to be available when users want it, wherever they may be. Make it easy for them! By taking the time to research and understand your target audience in the first instance, you will be able to answer simple questions like: where are they studying? (at home or at work) When are they studying? (in the evenings or during their lunch breaks). eLearning needs to be accessible at all times for learners otherwise they will soon lose motivation.

4. Bite-sized

Effective eLearning doesn’t involve lengthy courses that are hard to navigate. In the world that we live in, speed is of the essence. Time is precious and therefore needs to be spent wisely - that is why the trend of microlearning has increased so rapidly over the past few years. Now that eLearning is available on mobile devices, it is even more important that information is released in bite-sized chunks. Breaking learning into short periods means that users can carry out additional learning in-between, to help consolidate their learning further.

Effective eLearning includes practice and contextualization, which are both better when delivered in shorter sittings. Including tests or tasks in-between can really help learners to progress more quickly.

5. Easy to integrate

Traditional learning often involves reading through pages and pages of textbooks, and requires sitting in one place for hours in order to learn. The concept behind eLearning is to not only move this online, but create content that can easily be looked up. Any additional learning that is required outside of the course should be easily available and helpful for those who may need it. Effective eLearning isn’t just about the one course or module, it is about creating resources around the core topic that can help learners further.

So there you have it, the key ingredients of effective eLearning. At the end of the day, eLearning should deliver goals and objectives to learners in a way that keeps them hooked and interested at all times. Here at First Media we are experts at creating learning experiences that deliver results. For more information on how we can help your organisation, give us a call on 01507 607783.