Context

Online learning can assist individuals and organisations to learn in a timely manner. An understanding of neuroscience to enhance genuine adult learning should be considered when designing solutions.

Purpose

Latest research tell us about important factors to consider when it comes to providing online learning options for employees as part of compliance training, ongoing professional development, and/or skill or knowledge building for employees?

What you can do as a leader?

• Ensure a simplistic focused course design with clear learning outcomes – over complexity can cause anxiety & brain wandering.
• Aim to set up online learning with reference to prior knowledge – the mind connects new information to prior knowledge & real-life examples.
• Ensure learning is fun– the brain is wired to associate information with positive emotions.
• Ensure learning has student input and involves collaborative efforts – there are more gains when learning is a social process.
• Ensure learning is ongoing – the plasticity of the brain and how it responds to learning remains throughout our lifespan.Learning is like exercising a muscle, the more we use it the easier it is to use over time.
• Space learning over time- to enhance retent
• Repeated practice and rehearsal alongside meaningful and relevant feedback- to assist comprehension, retention and application ion of information in comparison to compressed learning
• Try to use exercises that are practical and relate to their work- theoretical learning is fine but practical examples and exercises are often needed to bring home the relevance and get the person to apply the learning to a situation.

Additional References

Keep your people learning when you go virtual