One of the major challenges facing businesses that deliver eLearning is engagement. For many learners, sitting down to get stuck into training, mandatory or otherwise, isn’t often top of their list. But making eLearning digestible, effective, and dare we say it, fun, doesn’t have to be impossible. Use these 5 simple tactics, to get on track to achieving a higher rate of eLearning engagement.
1. Communication
Communicating the importance and relevance of training to your learners is a great tool to increase engagement. Humans are creatures of habit, so it makes sense to make the concept of training a norm around the office. Training conversations should flow as easily at the water cooler as they do in the boardroom. This way, your learners will understand that training is a priority; “something we do” rather than “something we have to do”. Communicating effectively with your learners helps them understand the significance and value of training. eLearning engagement can also be improved by utilising a learning management system (LMS) that provides reminders and notifications that you can use to communicate with your learners.
2. Course Design
First and foremost, make your course content easy to digest. Avoid sensory overload, or overly complicated content layouts that may instantly deter your learners from continuing. Learners are more likely to engage with a course if it’s not overly-complex. Consider using course “building blocks” to keep things interesting, such as images, text, video, webinars and exams. Your courses (and your learners) need room to breathe, so make sure you think about the balance of text and other media. If necessary, you can provide links to further resources for those learners who require more context.
3. User Experience
Once that spark of engagement starts, it’s important to maintain it. That’s where User Experience (UX) comes in. The primary goal is to remove any barriers that may dissuade your learners from successfully completing their training. The UX needs to be frustration free, positive, and should suit the lifestyles of your learners. A good example is mobile learning; it allows your learners to access their training anytime, anywhere. Whether they’re on the morning train or grabbing a coffee, mobile learning makes for a great user experience. Other ways to boost engagement through UX includes easy navigation plus intuitive and responsive design within your LMS.
4. Motivation
Motivation is unfortunately not a toggle switch in your LMS settings. But there are some practical steps you can take to help motivate your learners to complete their training. Extrinsic motivation is ideal for this, as learners benefit from an external reward or recognition for completing a task. A great method of extrinsic motivation in eLearning is gamification. Gamification is the use of game mechanics in activities to improve the user’s experience. It motivates learners to execute certain behaviors to achieve their reward, and they have fun doing it. eLearning gamification generally comprises of elements such as badges, points, levels and leaderboards. When used correctly, it can be a powerful tool for increasing eLearning engagement.
5. Socialization
A factor that often hinders eLearning engagement is learner isolation – a feeling of loneliness or distance experienced while completing training. Such isolation refers to a lack of interaction between the learner and instructors or other learners. Some points we’ve already covered, such as webinars and gamification, can give a sense of ‘togetherness’ and reduce isolation. Another proven method in curbing isolation is social learning, which is peer-to-peer interaction that heightens the understanding of training topics. By creating forums where learners share information, you introduce another layer of interaction to eLearning. Through these forums, learners can communicate with each other and instructors easily. Blended learning is another great way to promote socialization and engagement among your learners.
Success Stories
As an LMS that supports these top 5 ways to keep your learners engaged, LearnUpon has helped numerous organizations achieve higher rates of eLearning engagement.
Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) introduced an LMS to provide training to almost 600 match officials, observers and key stakeholders. They were overwhelmed by the response to their courses; a 90% engagement rate was achieved in the first week of launch, with a 33% completion rate within the first 48 hours.
Phalcon needed an LMS to deliver training to their diverse workforce. They required a solution that would support the company’s growth, while training staff that included both office and field employees. The resulting eLearning courses had a strong participation rate, with one landmark course achieving a notable 90% engagement rate.
LearnUpon at World of Learning
LearnUpon will be exhibiting at this year’s World of Learning event in Birmingham on the 16th and 17th of October 2018. Drop by stand D50 and talk to our experts, Phily and Neil, about your eLearning engagement problems, and see what our versatile LMS can do for you.
Phily Hayes, LearnUpon’s Outbound Sales Manager, will delve even further into eLearning engagement at the World of Learning Conference. Be sure to catch his seminar on “eLearning engagement: A practical strategy” in Theatre 1 at 12.15pm on Wednesday, 17th October.