In this article, you'll learn...How to apply Robert Gagne's Learning Principles in your eLearning for a succesful development. As well, what to include in your eLearning courses for a more interactive, engaging and motivating learning experience.
Probably you’ve once have had the opportunity to hear or read various information about eLearning best practices.
If you do some research on the internet, books, magazines ... you will find information of all kinds, but without doubt, it requires further investigation to find those key points that will definitely make the difference.
This time, we have undertaken the task of resuming the principles defined by Robert Gagne, and their application to create eLearning courses that motivate your employees (learners) and to achieve the expected results in your company. Take a close look at some successful key points that will make the difference:
1. Gain attention!
When developing eLearning, even though it’s necessary to keep the learners' attention throughout the entire course, engaging them at the beginning is essential. This can specially be achieved by auditory and visual resources, or with relevant data according to their learning needs.
Learn some common ways of adding visual interest to an e-Learning course.
2. Build objectives
A well built and defined learning objective becomes a motivation and guidance tool for the employee. This means, learners must be aware of how the course will benefit them, what will they learn and what will they be able to do when they finish it. Some pointers you should consider:
- Objectives should be given early in the course.
- Content must include all information necessary to fulfill the objectives.
- Exercises should respond directly to goals.
3. Recover previous knowledge
Encouraging employees to use knowledge they have acquired from past experiences in their workplace provides a sense of personal relevance and enhances motivation. When designing your eLearning courses integrate activities such as diagnostic exercises, summaries,simulations, among others to meet this goal.
4. Guide the process
Content assimilation is more effective when the learner is continuously guided in their training process. eLearning, for its interactive nature, is ideal for using different strategies, including:
- Examples and counterexamples.
- Analogies.
- Simulations.
- Case studies.
5. Reinforce knowledge
Monitor progress and performance of your employees during their training through review activities to measure their level of assimilation and understanding. Take advantage of the dynamism and interactivity that eLearning represents, for:
- Games
- Simulations
- Exercises
Quick note: Don't forget that creating interactive content doesn't necessarily mean it's engaging or motivating, so be careful with that!
6. Provide Feedback
Formative feedback to employees in the context of practicing new skills and behaviors is crucial to reaffirm the understanding of content. This is even more important in an eLearning environment, considering that there is no teacher or instructor.
7. Evaluate
Just as in traditional training methods, eLearning courses should give learners the opportunity to test their knowledge. It is very important that they are able to monitor their progress.
We recommend the following points:
- Questions must align with course learning objectives.
- The evaluation should include options for the student to identify which areas to improve or topics to review.
- Questions should show the obtained score.
- At the end of the evaluation, there should be the option of obtaining a certificate.
8. Encourage retention
Improving retention allows employees to transfer their new knowledge and skills to their current job. To achieve this:
- Use simulations
- Or additional resources such as articles, tables, guides, references to related web sites, among others.
We hope you can incorporate all these into your e-Learning courses!
"E-learning should look less like training and more like the outputs of the marketing and communications teams. They know how to grab people instantly and hold their attention..." Kineo.
Intrested in seeing an example of an eLearning course that follows the previouse 8 steps? Click here to see it.
