A modern Learning Management System (LMS) takes the learning and development of employees to a completely new level, and at the same time automates many repetitive tasks of training teams. However, in order to achieve the desired results and increase employee commitment, it is necessary to provide them with proper courses – interactive, engaging, and corresponding with the needs of both the organization and the employees themselves. What to remember when designing e-learning courses? What rules to follow?
This article will explain the following:
- How to design an engaging e-learning course?
- How to ensure proper e-learning experiences of the participants?
- How does gamification affect commitment?
What motivates people to learn?
Employees’ motivations to learn and develop vary. For many of them, taking part in subsequent training courses is motivated by the fear of making a mistake or performing poorly. Some strive to expand their competences in a specific area in order to better understand their place in the corporate structure and to know the impact of their work on other organizational units. In every company, there is also a large group of people who constantly want to broaden their horizons and learn new things to climb the career ladder or change career paths.
It is therefore extremely important to understand employee motivations and monitor them in order to offer them the training they need at a given moment.
Why is involvement in e-education so important?
E-learning and e-training are more and more often treated by employees as an indispensable element of their work environment. They constitute an effective tool for raising qualifications and personal development. From the perspective of the management, implementing a remote education platform is a necessity. The key to success, however, is not only to make it available, but also to constantly improve it and supplement it with valuable content. While it is certainly time-consuming and costly, this investment has a potentially high rate of return. A remote education platform not only centralizes the know-how of the organization and automates a number of HR team processes, but also effectively motivates employees, increases their satisfaction, and ties them up with the organization for a longer period of time.
For 42% of Millennials, L&D is the most important benefit when deciding where to work.
Mechanisms used in designing e-learning courses
Each Learning Management System (LMS) offers a number of functionalities and formats which allow organizations to create more or less attractive and engaging training courses. The era of courses based mainly on written content and simple diagrams is gone forever. The great popularity of remote learning and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) has brought student expectations to a whole new level. For this reason, nowadays, it is necessary to reach for various training formats, interactive elements, gamification features, and modern technology, e.g. Augmented Reality (AR).
8 tips for creating an engaging e-learning course
A good Learning Management System (LMS) offers wide possibilities in terms of creating self-designed training courses and quickly making them available to interested parties. Even though the process of creating such a course is generally very intuitive, here are a few rules to remember:
#1 Remember your business goal
Each e-learning course is created for a specific purpose. Its task is to provide the staff with knowledge in a particular area, explain certain issues, prepare employees for a specific function, or conduct proper onboarding. When a course is created, its goals and parts should be precisely defined.
It is also necessary to measure the level of its completion, but it is possible only after it is made available to the employees. If it turns out that the designed course does not fully meet its goal, it will be necessary to redesign it.
#2 Choose the language and form to suit the recipients of the training
At the initial stage of creating an e-learning training course, its recipients should also be defined. The language and the level of advancement of the course should be optimally adapted to the level of the students. If the content of the course is incomprehensible to them and the examples used are not properly selected, the course will be quickly abandoned.
#3 Provide diversity
Training content which is properly planned and tailored to the needs of users is just one of the many key factors. It is also necessary to present it attractively. The point is to apply proper formatting of the content, divide it into logical parts, and take advantage of various forms of delivery – instructional videos, audio files, info-graphics, charts, etc. Such diversity doesn’t bore the students and allows them to remember essential information.
#4 Interactivity is important
A high level of course interactivity increases student involvement and knowledge acquisition. Students should be inclined to perform a variety of tasks, for example click on certain elements appearing on the screen, connect them logically, or choose one of several available scenarios. As a result, course content is reached step by step through discovering additional, more complex materials. This strategy positively affects student involvement and e-learning experience.
#5 Check acquired knowledge with tests and quizzes at multiple stages of the course
Using various types of tests and quizzes is a good idea to improve the effectiveness of training courses. Most e-learning courses end with a test, which is a condition for passing them. This solution has a significant drawback; many students decide to cram for the course and take the test as soon as possible, especially in the case of compulsory training. This happens even if it means the results will not be satisfactory. If the point is to achieve training goals, a more sensible and effective solution will be to place test questions and various types of quizzes or tasks in individual course sections.
#6 Make use of gamification
Another effective way of increasing involvement is gamification, i.e. using elements typical of computer games. These could include various achievement badges or points awarded for completing a course or an entire training path, as well as reaching a high ranking position. Certificates awarded after completing a course or a set of courses can also be a powerful motivator. By offering employees such opportunities, companies can strongly influence the level of their commitment and motivate them to improve their professional qualifications.
#7 Don’t make the courses too long
Nobody likes long training courses, so it is also worth making sure that they are as specific as possible and reasonably divided into parts. Consequently, the participants will not get bored too quickly, and the course itself will have a better chance of reaching a larger number of recipients. Why? Employees often do not have time for long training sessions during the day, but they should be able to find several minutes to complete a short training session or a well-designed module.
#8 Surprise the participants!
Using the element of surprise is also a good strategy to increase the involvement of students and more effectively convey the training content to them. Humor, videos filmed in the company, modern technologies such as Augmented Reality – all these elements can be used to successfully attract students and make them more involved. AR in particular can provide a completely new educational experience by moving training courses to the virtual world, which students only know from movies or computer games. High satisfaction guaranteed!
