There are a few theories out there about informal learning at work - the 70:20:10 split, Jay Cross’s 80%/20% model and Dan Pontefract’s 3:33 model, to name three. One thing they have in common is that they are just guidelines. It’s not suggested that companies should break their backs trying to achieve these splits or ratios. But it’s important to emphasise the role that informal and social learning plays in training. On that note, here are five ways to boost informal learning at work: 1. Buddy up Encouraging everyone - not just managers - to take part in coaching and mentoring can help to improve training and get everyone learning. Buddying up new starters with old hands is a great option, as is setting up an informal mentoring scheme. 2. Encourage sharing Once people get into the habit of sharing their knowledge, social learning will flourish. An intranet, internal forum or even a Learning Management System like our social Academy LMS which gives employees a platform on which to collaborate will boost learning in this way. 3. Showcase experts Make sure learners know to whom they can turn in order to discover information and learn more about certain things. If they know they can approach Clive in Marketing for help with branding, or Deirdre in Sales for advice on closing sales, they’ll be more likely to approach them - and learn from them. 4. Reward social learning If you see your learners are communicating and collaborating on projects, don’t ignore it - make sure they know how much you appreciate what they’re doing! On the Academy LMS we reward learners with badges and accolades such as ‘Top Contributor’. Making the social learning process fun with gamification is one way to boost informal learning even more. It also ensures that learners don’t ‘hoard’ information and helpful links, but share their knowledge with everyone. 5. Make informal learning required Functionality on the Academy LMS allows Academy Admins to set certain tasks that are required to be completed before a learner can ‘level up’ and move on to the next set of learning materials. One of these, which will encourage informal learning, is the ‘Know it All’ achievement, assigned to learners when they have shared their knowledge 10 times. Only after achieving this award can they level up, making collaboration and social learning essential parts of their learning journey. Want to find out more about social learning? We wrote a whole white paper on it! Get your copy for free by clicking the button below:    The post 5 Ways to Boost Informal Learning at Work appeared first on Growth Engineering.

There is much evidence to show that passive learning - sitting back and listening to a lecturer - provides only the lowest level of knowledge retention and cognition (Deslauriers et al., 2011). Active learning methods, on the other hand, help to develop problem solving and critical thinking skills and provide a much higher level of cognitive functioning. This leads to a greater degree of understanding and information retention. One active learning method which will achieve these feats of learning awesomeness is team-based learning, whereby learners are encouraged to prepare before a classroom-based event and then work in teams while in the classroom. It’s a classic example of the ‘flipped classroom’ that you may have heard of - getting learners to go through eLearning units in their own time, before they attend a classroom event, to free up time during the session for collaborative learning and discussion-based work. It ensures that learning is cemented much more thoroughly in the learners’ minds and also transforms the role of the tutor from content delivery to guide. There are four principles that contribute to successfully implementing team-based learning in the classroom: Carefully formed teams To get the most out of team-based learning, you can’t chuck learners together willy-nilly. Teams should be carefully formed and managed to ensure good team diversity and communication. There’s no point teaming the group’s most talkative learner with the least outgoing - the talkative learner will continue their role of over-contributing and the least talkative will stay silent. Instead, separating them might encourage the silent learner to come out of their shell and the louder learner might be more likely to listen to the views of others. It’s also important that a good diversity is present within teams. For instance a variety of education, experience and cultural backgrounds will be beneficial - you never know who might come up with an interesting idea! Accountability Being accountable to your peers is pretty critical to building a successful team. This doesn’t just mean contributing on the day, but also being accountable for pre-class preparation work. There’s nothing worse than arriving at class to find none of your team has done their homework! Feedback Individuals and teams need frequent and timely feedback to know how well they’re doing (or not). It’s important to pick up on misunderstandings and erroneous ideas early on, before they’re discussed and stick in the learners’ minds. Getting teams back on the straight and narrow will keep the topics focused, accurate and relevant to the desired learning outcomes. Applying knowledge It’s always easier to see whether we’ve learnt something when we can apply it, so encourage team application exercises that promote learning and team development. One way to achieve this is to ask teams to use their collective knowledge, skills and values to choose a specific solution to a problem and then defend their choice to the hills. You’ll soon see who knows their stuff and who is falling behind! These 4 tips will make sure that team-based learning exercises in the classroom are effective and engaging for learners. But team-based learning isn’t the only way to engage learners in the classroom - there are many more tips in our white paper all about how to make classroom learning more fun. Download it for free below!    The post Team-Based Learning: Make Learning Active! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

The role of a Learning and Development professional is fraught with difficulty. It’s such an important job - essentially, the success of the organisation lies in L&D’s hands! If gaps in knowledge are not spotted and rectified with training, problems can crop up throughout the company, from management to the bottom line. So it’s understandable that the L&D function might be feeling the strain. Research from KnowledgePool has shown that just 23% of L&D leaders are confident that the training they roll out has an impact on the bottom line, and under half are confident that they can demonstrate how training meets business needs and fills skills shortages. For such an essential function, it’s worrying that the L&D department doesn’t seem to have faith in itself and its actions: just a quarter are ‘very confident’ that training is innovative enough to deliver value, and only 24% feel ‘extremely’ or ‘very’ confident that they are able to harness technology to aid training. However, even though L&D doubt the alignment of training to business goals, 42% of senior management believe training is in fact ‘broadly’ aligned with business strategy, and a further quarter are ‘extremely’ aligned (CIPD). Plus over half (52%) of board members believe training meets business goals and 54% are confident that training will impact the bottom line - compared to L&D, the rest of the organisation is much more confident that training programmes are proving beneficial! So why the disparity? Why might Learning and Development professionals be lacking confidence in their choices? Perhaps part of it stems from the transformations that are occurring in Learning and Development at the moment. The move from classroom- and workshop-based training events to online learning, ‘flipped’ classroom and blended learning programmes can create a new and uncertain terrain for L&D to traverse. It’s a big change to move away from ‘traditional’ training to embrace online learning in organisations. Committing to change is often challenging, particularly if current processes seem to be ticking along nicely. Why fix what isn’t broken, after all? Yet clearly L&D do recognise that ‘something’ is broken - their confidence in training programmes would be significantly higher if they believe they are making the best choices. It may be that senior management and board members have more confidence in L&D decisions than L&D does itself because they don’t see the internal conflict that arises from making difficult choices - they just see the impact that training is having on employees. We put together the following white paper to show just why training should be brought online. If you’re struggling with confidence in your L&D plans and aren’t sure you’ll secure return on your investment, check it out for free below!    The post Don’t Panic, Learning and Development Professionals! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Find out what makes the world’s #1 Learning Management System tick! We’re inviting some lucky readers to join us on a guided tour of the Academy LMS, recently ranked the #1 LMS in the world by Craig Weiss, eLearning expert extraordinaire. Last month we attended two incredible tradeshows - AITD in Sydney, followed by ATD in Orlando. There was so much interest in the Academy LMS - particularly its gamification and social features - that we’ve decided to host a few LMS webinar tours to give you an in-depth look at just what our award-winning LMS has to offer! Places are strictly limited to 25 per slot and are already filling up, so be sure to secure your place ASAP.   Tuesday 2nd June 2015 at 10am CT (4pm BST) hosted by Dan Blackburn, Head of US Sales SOLD OUT Wednesday 3rd June 2015 at 3pm CT (9pm BST) hosted by Dan Blackburn, Head of US Sales. SOLD OUT Tuesday 9th June 2015 at 2pm AEST (11pm BST) hosted by Jane Wilding, Vice President of Asia Pacific Commercial Operations. CLICK HERE TO RSVP! If the timings of these webinars aren’t convenient for you, keep your eyes peeled for another LMS webinar slot at a more suitable time in the near future - unless you fancy joining us from the comfort of your bed while sipping hot cocoa, which is fine too. It’s a webinar; no one will know you’re in your PJs! Here’s some of what you can expect to see on the webinar tour: Gamification: see how points, badges, ‘levels’ and leaderboards contribute to learner engagement and motivate learners to work harder for longer Social features: check out the ‘What’s happening?’ feed, see how easy it is to chat to anyone on your Academy via instant message, see how the Insights Groups operate Library: see how easy it is to find training and development materials Performance Centre: check out our new centre for performance management - set and track KPIs and objectives, evaluate values and principles, manage reviews and monitor roles and competencies and much, much more! To RSVP to Dan’s Academy LMS Webinar Tour, click the button below: To join Jane on her Academy LMS Webinar Tour, click this one: We also have a couple of upcoming webinar slots to show off Genie, our game-based authoring tool. Click here to find out more about the Genie Webinar Tours.  The post RSVP to the Academy LMS Webinar Tour! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Discover how the Genie Game-Based Authoring Tool makes learning fun! We’re inviting some lucky readers to join us on a guided tour of Genie, our new Game-Based Authoring Tool! There was so much interest in Genie last month at the AITD show in Sydney and ATD in Orlando that we’ve decided to host a few Genie Webinar Tours to show you exactly what our gamified content tool can do for your organisation! Anyone who signs up will also get exclusive demo access to Genie, allowing you to try it before anyone else! Places are strictly limited to 25 per slot and are already filling up, so be sure to secure your place ASAP. The Genie Webinar Tours will be hosted by Juliette Denny, Managing Director of Growth Engineering, so you’ll really be getting the star treatment! Choose from the two options below and prepare to be blown away by Genie’s magic: Wednesday 17th June 2015 at 10am CT (4pm BST) Thursday 18th June 2015 at 10am CT (4pm BST) Click the button below to RSVP: Here’s what you can expect to see on the Genie Webinar Tour: Game templates: check out Genie’s pre-loaded game templates - now you can create game-based eLearning to delight learners Gamification: see how points, badges and leaderboards motivate and engage content creators Social features: check out the Activity Stream to see who is doing what and see how the Genieous Forums work Project management: find out how Genie keeps eLearning development on track and enables content creators to stick to (or smash!) deadlines and much, much more! We also have a couple of upcoming webinar slots to show off the Academy LMS, our gamified social Learning Management System, which was recently ranked the #1 LMS in the world. Click here to find out more.  The post RSVP to the Genie Webinar Tour! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

It’s quite well known that eLearning offers several pretty great advantages over regular classroom-based learning at work. For instance, it’s flexible - both in terms of time and place - and encourages learners to take an active role in their training. It’s also a massive advantage for workplaces where lifelong learning at work is important, such as industries where laws and regulations change regularly, or where the employee always needs to keep on top form and up to date, e.g. the medical professions. eLearning is also a great option for when employees are all at different skill levels and need to progress at different rates. Rather than all employees needing to sit through the same lectures and workshops, they can access whatever content on their LMS is relevant to them at that particular time. This means the employees who have the most passion and drive will progress fastest, and those who need a little more time to get their heads around the topics can take the time to do so. There’s no worry of the class progressing too fast and leaving anyone behind! It’s all well and good knowing that these benefits are associated with eLearning, but they don’t necessarily mean employees will embrace online learning with open arms. To truly establish eLearning as ‘the way we do things here’, the initial introduction of online learning at work needs to be very well structured and thought out. All stakeholders need to have a positive attitude towards the new training, which can be achieved by making sure learners are satisfied and progressing well. Once stakeholders and senior management see the positive effect eLearning is having, they’ll be more accepting of it. Therefore it’s essential that employees are given access to a good Learning Management System that works well and does what it says on the tin - i.e. rolls out learning content to employees and gets them engaged in their training. Securing learner engagement is pretty much the most important thing when it comes to Learning Management Systems. Without engagement, employees simply won’t be able to muster up the motivation to undertake their training, improve their skills and push the company forward from success to success. Wondering how to secure engagement? It’s quite simple when you know how! There are two buzz words that come together in securing engagement on Learning Management Systems: ‘gamification’ and ‘social’ learning. Find out more about these two essential parts of online learning at work by downloading the free white paper below!    The post Creating a Positive Attitude Towards Learning at Work appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Does eLearning ‘not work’ in your industry? Maybe eLearning is a ‘poor substitute’ for face-to-face training? Are you worried your employees ‘won’t like’ online learning? These are all fallacious arguments and have no real basis in what eLearning is really about. eLearning has a pretty bad reputation for being boring, buggy and ineffective. But, as most of us know, reputations are often based on opinions, not facts. The truth of online learning is simple: done right, it motivates, engages and upskills learners. Myth: eLearning doesn’t work in my industry Truth: eLearning works in every industry. No matter what kind of job you do, eLearning will work to train employees. Do you drive a forklift? eLearning can be used for health and safety training. Work in a shop? Retail eLearning is very important to improve sales and customer experience. Do you manage a call centre? Management training, such as from the Institute of Sales and Marketing Management (ISMM), will be incredibly useful to improve your managerial skills. Myth: eLearning is a poor substitute for face-to-face training. Truth: eLearning works both as stand-alone training and as part of a blended training programme, depending on your specific needs. That doesn’t necessarily mean that every aspect of training can be done online; in some instances that’s just not feasible. You wouldn’t expect to teach or learn about correct suturing procedures online - you’d watch someone doing it in real life and then practise it yourself. But you can certainly learn about the theory behind suturing via eLearning - why certain techniques are favoured, healing time, types of suture, and so on. Myth: My employees won’t enjoy eLearning Truth: While it may be the case that your employees, or even your, have had bad experiences of eLearning in the past, that’s absolutely no reason to avoid it in future. You just need to ensure that the eLearning you roll out is engaging and effective! We do this (and win lots of awards for it!) by making learning fun with gamification and social features. Click the button below to read more! Myth: eLearning is not cost-effective. Truth: Really? Really?? Once you sit down and do the calculations you’ll find that eLearning is incredibly cost-effective - more so than classroom-based learning, at any rate, and particularly so when you have a lot (500+) employees to upskill. Consider the costs involved in classroom training: travel expenses, hiring the conference room, paying a tutor, food and drink, a day or few days of lost sales… It all adds up. On the other hand, with online learning you’ll only need to pay a one-off fee for the set-up the LMS, an LMS licence fee, and licensing for eLearning (unless you create your own - see how that’s possible here). When you’re talking about training hundreds or thousands of employees, eLearning is certainly the most cost-effective and pain-free option. Find out more about why eLearning is a great choice for organisations by clicking the button below. Alternatively click here to download our free research paper which tackles all the most common objections to online learning!    The post What’s Holding You Back From eLearning? appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Picture this: you manage a team of salespeople. You have a few top performers, a couple of average-performers and one lazy so-and-so who never seems to do much work, yet somehow manages to hit on the big accounts and keep their metrics up. You give all your salespeople some training, and they all improve - even the top performers! "Great!" you think. "Everyone’s performance is soaring!" Until suddenly… BAM. You notice that for the past two months, you’ve seen no improvements. The top performers are still the best, but overall performance has tapered off. "But… but the training… I thought it worked!" you wail. One of the problems here is that once training is given, improvements may only be temporary. Employees may take on board the training for a short while and implement the new ideas in their work, but eventually they fall out of these new habits, forget the best techniques and wind up back where they began. Ericsson (2007) explains this as a problem of habituation. Well-performing employees become habituated to executing routine work proficiently, but without further improvement - it’s only through a sustained, deliberate effort to improve that these employees will see an increase in performance. It’s frustrating for trainers and Learning and Development professionals, of course, but it’s also demotivating for employees. They put all this effort into training yet find their managers back on their case only a few short weeks or months later - it’s like they just can’t win. This cycle of train > increased performance > plateaued performance > train can be difficult to break, not to mention costly. Isn’t it better to train once, and continue to reap the rewards months or years afterwards? Of course! The solution lies in the kind of training your employees have. Research by McEdwards found that one of the main contributors to continued performance increases was ‘deliberate practice’ after the initial training (which can be delivered via online learning mechanisms). It’s a form of training that includes coached, intensive exercises conducted over a period of time, ‘aimed at perfecting skills and pushing learners beyond their level of ability’. Deliberate practice involves (over and above the actual training) mentoring, immediate feedback and on-the-job learning, rather than time-consuming and costly seminar approaches. When McEdwards’ participants were encouraged to deliberately practise their new skills in their work environment, performance increased by 6.7 points - compared to a seminar group, who weren’t encouraged in the same way, which improved by an average of 2.9 points. Clearly, deliberate practice is a huge benefit to employees and their managers. So how can organisations encourage this deliberate practice? Gram (2013) suggests it should be embedded in the job, with experiences ‘designed to include practice and reflection, build tactic knowledge and design rich feedback’. Deliberate practice is actually well suited to adult learners and goes hand in hand with the integrated use of technology in training. It can be a valuable tool when managers recognise that passive forms of training aren’t working - i.e. if sitting in a classroom or workshop isn’t resulting in the sustained performance improvements that employers need to see. Of course, the first step in the chain will always be indentifying a training deficit and choosing an initial training programme to close the gap. Research shows that online learning is an incredibly effective way of delivering training and development solutions, and some Learning Management Systems, like our gamified social LMS, are set up with deliberate practice in mind. Check out the free download below to see what we mean!    The post End the Agony of Stagnating Performance with Deliberate Practice appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Informal learning is the best way of gaining knowledge and skills in the workplace. We are a bit like sponges - we suck up experiences and knowledge and we learn from observing other people. Research shows that we actually gain more knowledge more effectively in informal learning contexts, rather than in traditional ‘formal’ training situations. That’s not to say formal training such as eLearning isn’t necessary or effective (quite the opposite!) but it’s clear that in general the learning paradigm is moving from traditional instructor-led training to a culture of constant knowledge acquisition, where the focus is on continued learning, not discrete training events. This means that it’s pretty important your organisation encourages informal learning, otherwise known as ‘social’ learning, because it involves employees learning from those more experienced, sharing their knowledge and collaborating. Informal learning also covers more general learning at work, such as trial and error, learning from feedback and coaching. It’s vital that organisations give learners the opportunity to learn informally at work. If we’re stuck in cubicles, barely allowed to have a chat around the watercooler, or have such strict KPIs we can’t afford to stop what we’re doing even for a moment, informal learning will be stifled. Yet on the other hand, if we’re given the opportunity to converse, work together and observe others, informal learning will flourish - and we’ll actually learn more and improve our productivity than if we’d been chained to our desks the whole time. Factors that influence informal learning There are a few styles or types of informal learning, as hinted at above. This kind of learning can be done individually, with others, or an on organisational level. Here’s more about each one in turn: Individual informal learning This includes self-directed learning, trial and error, and modelling (copying others). It is influenced - both positively and negatively, so watch out - by factors such as: Confidence (if we feel capable of improving our skills) Interest in the profession (do we care enough to actively learn?) Endurance for change (are we happy to evolve with our situation and learn things as and when required?) Previous experience (do we have a good outlook on learning?) Professional capacity (are we able to essentially put our tasks on hold and dedicate an hour, a day, etc to improving our skills?) Job satisfaction (if we’re happy in our roles, does that make us more or less motivated to seek change?) Accessibility (how able are we to seek out more experienced colleagues in order to learn from them, and are we able to access training when we want it?) Peer to peer informal learning This covers mentoring, coaching and working in teams to improve knowledge. Factors that influence this kind of informal learning include: Climates of collaboration (is working together encouraged or discouraged?) Sharing and trust (are more experienced others happy to share their experience, or are they worried about helping others to reach the same level as them?) Feedback (is feedback readily accepted? How is it handled in the workplace? Is it a ‘done thing’ to seek feedback?) Support and encouragement (if our manager isn’t on our side, it’ll be hard to get any kind of mentoring programme of the ground) Opportunities to meet professionals (are we able to meet with more experienced colleagues or industry professionals? This can be hard if we work in a group setting with similarly-able colleagues) Organisational informal learning This style is slightly more formal than other kinds, since it can revolve around career development policies, job assignments and HR systems, but it is still very different from traditional ‘formal’ training programmes. Factors influencing organisational/environmental informal learning include: Learning support system (is there a structure in place to support us as we embark on learning?) Rewards (everything is much more motivating and engaging if we are rewarded for it!) Challenging and valuable work (if we don’t feel challenged we may not feel any desire to increase our knowledge. Similarly, if we doubt our work is valuable, we might not find the motivation to improve) Learning culture (is everyone else encouraged to learn, or is it a bit taboo? Does management accept, embrace or encourage informal learning?) Time and space (are we afforded enough time to set ourselves career goals and work on different job assignments?) Clearly, there’s a lot more to ‘informal learning’ than first meets the eye. It’s not only learning from others and learning while ‘on the job’ - there are many facets to informal learning and it’s important that organisations understand and encourage each one. Want to learn more about informal learning and how it can be combined with formal training? Download our free white paper by clicking the button below!    The post The Hidden Gems of Informal Learning appeared first on Growth Engineering.

The ‘Five Moments of Need’ model proposed by Bob Mosher and Conrad Gottfredson is another way to look at the differences between formal and informal learning. There are a few different moments throughout the learning of new things when we need to gain information instantly - in other words, five moments of learning need. 1. Learning something for the first time At this moment of need, we may be embarking on a new training course. This is the moment we begin our learning journey and content enters our noggins for the first time. Obviously, we need access to training or learning materials at this stage; otherwise we’ll never learn anything! 2. Learning more of something Sometimes, our interest will be piqued and we’ll want to continue learning, or the training will only be partly completed. Either way, there is a need to learn more. At this moment of need, we may be beginning to understand the content quite well, but we still need access to more training. We can satisfy these two moments of need with formal learning - such as classroom-based learning, online training on Learning Management Systems, webinars and virtual conferences, or any combination of the above. According to Mosher and Gottfredson, formal learning makes up 5% of learning. We don’t stop learning once the formal training is over. We actually need to continue learning throughout our working lives, and these final three moments of need highlight these times. 3. Trying to remember or apply We’re not perfect, us humans. We forget things. That’s why learning content needs to be available to us when we are trying to remember something that we had learnt, or figure out how to apply it. 4. When things change Part of learning is adapting to change and still being able to apply the training. After all, we wouldn’t get very far if we could only ever work out mathematical sums if we had a basket of apples and three hungry friends! If we can’t adapt our knowledge to varying situations, we’ve not truly learnt the content. That’s why training should be available whenever and wherever we might need it. 5. When something goes wrong Thinking on our feet is a great skill to have. Without the ability to do so, we won’t be able to tackle any challenges which come our way or apply our knowledge in new ways to solve problems. This, and moment of need #4, call for a ‘just in time’ approach to learning. These three learning moments of need mostly commonly occur in the context of work, after the initial formal training event(s) have occurred. According to the model, informal learning covers 95% of activities that take place in order for us to truly understand and improve our knowledge. Informal learning at work covers things like collaboration, observing others, coaching and mentoring, feedback and accessing prior training online to go over it again in our own ways and in our own time. When you think that 95% of what we know we gain from learning at work, you can see how important it is that the workplace provides opportunities to learn! We’ve written about informal/social learning quite extensively in the past. You can click here to see all our tagged blog posts, or alternatively click the button below to download a free white paper all about informal learning!    The post What’s Your Learning ‘Moment of Need’? appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Technology has come a long way since most of us began our education. Calculators are now a feature of every mobile phone, rather than having to be powered by a super-computer or carried around in a suitcase. Smartphones can perform a huge number of functions that we used to need various different pieces of equipment for, from a separate MP3 player and a laptop computer to a pedometer strapped to our waistband and a compass in our pocket. It stands to reason, then, that in addition to all the entertainment uses of technology, we can also utilise these new functionalities for educational purposes. Here’s a rundown of our favourite apps, websites and products that make learning that much easier: Rosetta Stone Probably the most well-known piece of software available for learning languages, Rosetta Stone has made a name for itself as being an engaging and effective way of learning to speak a new language. It has gone through plenty of changes over its 20 years in existence, keeping up with changing technologies and pedagogies, and has benefited 12,000+ organisations, 9,000+ public and non-profits, 22,000+ educational institutions and millions of individual learners worldwide. And they still found time to make an app! eBooks No longer do we have to trade a healthy back with knowledge and lug around 1,000-page tomes. Nowadays technology has made it possible to condense gigantic books into a tablet the thickness of a pencil and the weight of a pack of cards. And observers are none the wiser as to whether you’re reading 50 Shades of Grey, War and Peace or Computing for Dummies. Additionally, eBooks have significantly reduced the cost of learning, down from £12.99 or so for a book (much more for a technical book!) to £5 or less for an eBook. This opens the doors hugely to learning new things, as we’re no longer restricted by what we can spend or carry. YouTube While at first glance it can be seen as an entertainment-based website, YouTube is actually a mine of educational gold. From ‘how to’ tutorials to conference talks, YouTube really makes learning easy for those of us who learn best by watching and listening. And the ‘Recommended’ videos down the side help to expand our knowledge in ways we hadn’t imagined, taking us from sales techniques to book writing tips to, of course, hilarious cat videos. Wikipedia Everything you could ever want to know is now housed on one website, editable by individuals. If you’re a subject matter expert and you find a topic lacking or non-existent, you’re welcome to contribute to its creation and benefit hundreds of thousands of others who aren’t as knowledgeable. It’s a pretty nice ego-booster to know you’re helping out so many people hungry for knowledge! From conducting research for your chemistry homework and learning about the solar system to completing your tax return and finding a list of all horror films released since 1980, there is information for every instance. And with Android and iOS apps available to download, finding information is easier than ever before. Learning Management Systems Well, we couldn’t list our favourite technology-related learning resources without including our Academy LMS in the line-up! Learning Management Systems are online platforms for delivering, monitoring and reporting on training programmes. Corporate LMSs are used within organisations to upskill employees, while educational LMSs can be used for higher educational purposes. Some Learning Management Systems are pretty basic and will do just the bear minimum, while others - the Academy LMS included - offer much, much more: gamification, social learning features, classroom management, performance management and more. These are just a few of the technologies available to us which have made it so much easier to find information, learn new things and improve our lives. Want to learn more about how technology is making learning more fun and engaging? Download our free white paper below and see how technology can be used in the classroom to boost learning!    The post Our Favourite Uses of Technology to Make Learning Fun and Easy appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Learner engagement is what all L&D departments, learning technology companies and training providers aim to achieve. Without engagement, training simply won’t work. It may appear to work, in that learners might show improved test results directly after training. But in the long run? To achieve the long-lasting behavioural change that training is supposed to cement? Well, that is dependent on learner engagement. A lack of engagement is related to low levels of academic achievement, high levels of learner boredom and disaffection, and high drop-out rates (at least in voluntary courses - in corporate scenarios the employees will just have to lump it and their performance will drop accordingly!). It’s a shame, but learners generally view online learning as boring or as a mere grade game, where they try to get by with as little effort as possible - they coast through their training doing the bare minimum just to keep their managers happy, in other words. So, we know we need to aim for ‘engagement’, and we know what happens when we lack it. But what is engagement really? The American Heritage College Dictionary defines engagement as being ‘actively committed’, to ‘involve oneself or become occupied; to participate’. In their 2009 research paper on school engagement, Fredricks, Blumenfeld and Paris define engagement in three ways: Behavioural engagement Essentially this is how we behave when learning. It draws on the idea of participation in an activity - the more willing we are to participate, the more engaged we are. When we’re involved in academic, social and extracurricular activities there is more likely to be a positive outcome from the training, and less chance of dropping out. Emotional engagement When we have an emotional connection to tutors, our fellow learners, experts, L&D staff and so on, we’re more willing to do the work required of us. That’s one of the reasons it’s so important that learners are encouraged to socialise and communicate on their Learning Management System, and is why gamification - particularly the use of leaderboards, where we can see how other people are doing - helps to motivate us to learn. Cognitive engagement If we’re happy to invest our time in our tasks, we’ll be more thoughtful in our endeavours and more willing to exert the effort necessary to comprehend complex ideas and master difficult skills. That’s not to say one of these definitions is better than the others. In fact, they’re more helpful if they are taken together, as they’re intertwined. Together, they are able to offer a richer characterisation of learners than is possible when we think of them as single, separate components - because, really, they are never distinct. Our behaviour will always be influenced by our emotions, and the cognitive effort we put in will impact on how we perceive the training. It’s also important to highlight that these components aren’t all or nothing. We can be emotionally engaged to a degree just as we can put in a little bit of cognitive effort (e.g. simply memorising the content) or a lot (using self-regulated learning strategies that promote deep understanding). This suggests that engagement isn’t a stable characteristic, but is variable in terms of intensity and duration. We can be engaged in the short term, in certain situations, or for a long time consistently across all situations. And if Fredricks et al. are correct in their assertion that ‘engagement, once established, builds on itself’, it’s vital that organisations make the effort to engage their employees in their training. We’ve set out one way that organisations can get employees engaged - read the gamification white paper below to find out how engagement will boost business success!    The post You Probably Don’t Know What ‘Engagement’ Really Means appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Not everyone has a magic wand to cast a spell on learners and get them to instantly adore their training. There’s no potion that you can slip into employees’ drinks to get them to engage with their online learning. No magic word to awaken some instinctive desire to learn. Unfortunately, the bottom line of it is that encouraging learners to go online and take their eLearning courses is not always easy. Even with all-singing, all-dancing, state-of-the-art learning technologies, it’s hard to get employees to participate in their training. And this applies whether you’re training on sales, new product launches, soft skills or compliance - though the last is known to be devilishly disengaging! Employees simply don’t think they have the time to complete the training required of them, or they don’t see the benefit of it, so they don’t bother. It’s pretty sad. So how do you get your employees to engage with eLearning? Ultimately, we think that what gets seen gets done. By making things visible, individual performance is highlighted. That’s why we put rewards and recognition at the heart of the learning experience. On the Academy LMS, recognition is given each time a learner logs on to their Learning Management System and accesses eLearning, downloads materials, completes tests and communicates with others. Badges, points and rewards - which fall under the term ‘gamification’ which you may have heard of (if not, click here!) - come together to make the learning work because employees need to gain the badges if they want to appear on the leaderboard. You might be thinking, "A poxy leaderboard? So what? No one would aspire to get on a leaderboard!" But actually, research (and our own customers’ experiences) has proved that leaderboards are incredibly engaging for learners. The leaderboards are visible to all learners, though individual leaderboards for different divisions or teams can be set up to encourage some healthy competition. When a learner logs into their LMS, they’re greeted with the leaderboard, which shows them who is on the top spot - i.e. who has gained the most badges for doing the most eLearning courses and interacting with their Academy - and highlights where they fall on the ladder of legends. If an employee sees they’ve been dropping down the rankings, they’ll be motivated to do the necessary - whether that’s to take outstanding eLearning courses or tests, or any other activity - to begin their climb to stardom once again. ‘What gets seen gets done’ also applies to training content. If it’s hard for learners to find out what they need to do next, it simply won’t get done. On the other hand, if their training to-do list is obvious, they will be motivated to complete it - or at least devour a few of the tempting eLearning morsels to boost their prowess. Knowing this, we’ve created the Academy with an easy-to-navigate dashboard that instantly tells learners what they need to do: it’s there, loud and clear, just waiting for them: My Things to Do. Can’t say fairer than that, right? We’d love to show you a bit more of the Academy so you can see for yourself the correct way to engage your employees in their training. Simply click the button below, fill out the form and we’ll be in touch to arrange a demo. Ta-ta for now!    The post Turn Your Zombie Learners Into Learning Legends! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

It’s incredibly hard to make predictions for the future. Things can change in a heartbeat, especially in the technology industry, where inventions and developments can change the trajectory of a product overnight. So when we think about eLearning courses and where they might be in a year or two, it can be tricky to pin down the developments that will make the most difference. What might seem inconceivable to us now may become commonplace in a year’s time; conversely, what is the ‘next big thing’ at the moment may be relegated to the ‘nice idea but would never work’ dustbin in a month. However, there are a few things we can be certain of when it comes to eLearning modules: eLearning will be more fun There’s not much worse than having to drag yourself through a boring eLearning module, is there? Okay, a bad case of the runs might be worse, but ultimately a mind-numbingly dull eLearning unit will be up there with the worst of them. That’s why we can say almost categorically that any learning technologies company worth its salt - and any organisation that cares about its employees - will create eLearning that is fun and enjoyable for learners. How this is achieved isn’t as clear-cut, though we suggest using a game-based authoring tool to do the job. Read more about that here! eLearning will be a game for developers If taking eLearning modules is a bore, just think how soul crushing it is to develop such deadly dull modules! In the future, eLearning production will become enjoyable in and of itself. This’ll help developers, subject matter experts and other L&D professionals to create truly exceptional eLearning. If the creators of content are having fun and enjoying the process, the eLearning they create will far surpass anything made by brain-dead drones forced to work with out of date slideshow presentations… eLearning will be incredibly interactive and personalised Right now, a lot of eLearning deserves to be rounded up and eradicated. You’ve probably experienced it before: click ‘Next’. Read the page. Click ‘Next’. Read the page. Click ‘Next’. Select your answer from three possible choices. Click ‘Next’. Read the page. And so on, ad infinitum. It’s not exactly riveting, is it? We live in a world where interactivity is valued. We can interact with petrol pumps by selecting our preferred method of payment; we can buy cinema tickets online or on our smartphones and select exactly which seat we’d like to plonk ourselves; in fact, in some cinemas we can even push a little button on our seat to request snacks during the film! We can interact with the environment around us to such an extent that it seems almost alien to not be able to do this during eLearning. Why should we be forced to passively sit through eLearning when an Apple Watch can tell us when it’s time to stand up and stretch? When our car knows our preferred seat position from our partner’s? It’s like being forced to order a ‘coffee’ when what we really want is a venti, half-whole milk, one quarter 1%, one quarter non-fat, extra hot, split quad shots, no foam latte, with whip, 2 packets of splenda, 1 sugar in the raw, a touch of vanilla syrup and 3 short sprinkles of cinnamon. In the future, eLearning units will know our names. We’ll be able to enter specific details into the module - our job role, specific challenges, problem colleagues - and the content will adapt accordingly. In all, it’ll make for a much richer learning experience and result in a deeper level of understanding. Which is exactly what we’re aiming for with eLearning! These are just a few ways that we think eLearning will change over the next year. In some respects, we’re already there… Our new content authoring tool, Genie, is gamified to make the development experience engaging for content creators, and produces some really rather fantastic game-based eLearning units to keep learners happy, too. Read more about Genie here or click the button below to head on over to Genie’s magical lair:  The post Where will eLearning be 1 year from now? appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Whether securing a budget is a feat in and of itself, or your organisation is happy to splash the cash, once you’ve got your L&D budget you’ll need to start spending it. With so many options out there, how can you be sure you’re betting on the right horse? Here are our top tips to clever budget spending: Plan for now, and for the future If your idea is to roll out training to a small number of employees first, and then expand the training if successful, make sure you consider the costs involved. If your deal for 100 users seems too good to be true, it just might be - how much will the price increase for 1,000 users? Conversely, some price plans seem expensive at the lower end, yet the more users that are added, the better the deal becomes. So plan for the future: if you know you’ll need a 2,500 user plan within one year, research those numbers now - not just the initial 100! Weigh up basic vs comprehensive packages Think carefully about what your online learning needs really are. Do you need an all-singing, all-dancing Learning Management System? Or do you need a more basic learning platform with has fewer features, but which will take up less of the budget? ‘As standard’ or ‘Optional extra’? It’s also important to consider which features will come as standard and which will be an optional extra. This will vary from vendor to vendor, so make sure you compare them carefully. What might seem like a cheap deal can quickly become more expensive when certain features are selected, which might be included in the costs of another option. Bells and whistles If you want to make the most of your L&D budget, you need an online training solution which will engage your learners; something that will encourage them to log on and take the training under their own steam, without having to cattle prod them into compliance! Well, not all online learning solutions can achieve this. Most Learning Management Systems are just that - systems for managing learning. There’s nothing in there about securing learner engagement, making learning fun or, you know, actually being an effective way of training learners online. Ultimately you’ll need more than ‘just’ a Learning Management System to get learners truly engaged. Finding an LMS that is dedicated to supercharging learner engagement is tricky, but luckily for you, you’ve stumbled upon the site of the world’s #1 gamified Learning Management System, renowned for boosting engagement and making the learning process enjoyable. Find out more about the Academy LMS by requesting a demo webinar tour!  The post Responsible for an L&D budget? Here are 4 things you need to consider appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Working in a team… Giving credit where it’s due… Sharing the glory… There’s a lot that team sports can teach us about online learning. Learning is not a solo affair You can’t very well play football without teammates or opponents, and you shouldn’t expect to learn entirely on your own, either. So much of what we know comes from sharing ideas with other people, collaborating on projects and learning from watching others. Respect the team captain When working on a project together, whether it’s online or face-to-face, you’ve got to defer to the team captain. If someone is more knowledgeable than you, don’t try to talk over them, ignore their advice, ‘block’ their communication or badmouth them to your fellow teammates. On the Academy LMS - our gamified Learning Management System - this equates to listening to those learners who have reached the top of the leaderboard (they clearly know their stuff!) and who have gained the most badges in a particular area. If they’re performing well on the LMS, stick with them. You could learn a lot, kid. Pass the baton You won’t win a relay race if you try to make it all the way around on your own. Equally, you can’t expect to know everything all of the time. Every now and then you’ll need to hold out the baton in front of you and let someone else, with fresh legs and new ideas, take the lead. This’ll give you the chance to recoup, gather your thoughts, practise what you’ve learnt and then be ready to charge once again when the time is right. Practice makes perfect In order to really succeed at a sport - not just a team sport - you’ll need to put in the effort in the form of hours and hours of practising. Similarly, learning new things takes practice, too. You’ll need to be as dedicated to improving your knowledge as you are to reducing your golf handicap, or hitting the back of the net with every strike. Put these things together - practising, working together, giving credit where it’s due and learning from more knowledgeable others - and you’ll be well on your way to being the perfect teammate—err, learner. Want to find out more about how learning is like a team sport? Download our white paper for free below!    The post What team sports can teach us about learning appeared first on Growth Engineering.

What does the workplace of the future look like? Will we type while walking on a treadmill? Will we all be working from home, calling in with video conferencing software? Or maybe we’ll each be entitled to 30 minutes’ yoga instruction each morning? A paper by unum called The Future Workplace identifies some key trends that employers and business owners will have to consider. Here are a few key takeaways (make sure to check out the full report here too!). Mind matters It’s becoming increasingly important that not only is an employee’s physical wellbeing catered for - with adequate breaks, access to tea, coffee and water, a safe environment in which to work, etc - but that their mind and emotional wellbeing are looked after, too. It makes sense, of course. We’re not drones with parts that need oiling to keep us working. We’re individuals who are affected by many different things; not just how squeaky our joints are. In terms of training, this would involve not just workplace safety training (such as what to do in the event of a fire) but also training on recognising stress in the workplace and how to deal with it. Engagement Here’s something we know a lot about! Evidence shows that just 13% of us are truly engaged in our work, with 24% actively disengaged. It’s incredibly worrying, since an engaged workforce is a happy workforce. 32% of British workers feel exhausted juggling career, family, friends, a social life, fitness and other commitments, and say they don’t think they will want to work later in life. Despite this, evidence does show that the general trend in Britain is towards an ‘ageless workplace’, where employees increasingly continue to work well after retirement age. But in order for organisations to take advantage of this trend, the exhaustion that employees are feeling needs to be addressed. Clearly, being asked to take training on top of feeling exhausted and desperate is not a big win for organisations. So it’s important that engagement issues are highlighted and tackled. Overload creep This involves a feeling of being ‘always on’ and available for work, and is said to be felt by 73% of British workers. Rather than them being energised and engaged, overload creep demotivates them and significantly increases both stress levels and the likelihood that they will leave their jobs - at huge cost to British businesses. That’s why organisations need to recognise and respond to stresses and to ensure that any mental health issues of employees are addressed. Employees want (and need!) to be able to shut off for a while. If they can’t do it while at home because of keeping up with emails or continuing to work, they’ll take it wherever they can - often during their working days. Asking employees to do more may not seem like the way to go, but training can help to alleviate some of these issues. If the training is enjoyable and different enough from their usual day-to-day work, then employees might be able to consider training as their ‘break’. This might certainly be the case with game-based eLearning, as employees might not even feel like they’re doing much work. And training can give employees the boost they need to re-engage with the organisation, since they’ll know they are important enough to warrant upskilling. Intuition To counter the issues emerging from the previous trends, employers need to embrace the idea of both an ‘ageless’ and a ‘mindful’ workplace. Unum’s report suggests employers should work to transform the workplace into one where "age is irrelevant, energy levels are maximised, the mind is cultivated and people can ‘switch off’ sometimes to refresh themselves mentally and be more productive in the long term". From an L&D perspective, it’s clear that training and development needs to be involved in this process. Upskilling employees will re-engage them in their work; they’ll feel motivated to perform; they’ll keep up to date with the skills they need to do well, such as technological skills; and good eLearning can even provide a bit of a break from the hard slog. You can read the entire unum workplace of the future report here. Find out more about how training can help to re-engage and motivate employees by downloading our free white paper below:    The post The workplace of the future appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Our very own Head of Customer Excellence, Mr Richard Culpin, has reached the finals of the UK Customer Experience Awards! Please excuse us while we hoist Richard up on our shoulders for a celebratory lap around the office… Now that’s done, let’s explain a bit more about the awards, the category and what this means for Richard and Growth Engineering. The Customer Experience Awards, part of Awards International, was created to recognise and reward outstanding achievement in customer experience across a variety of industries and disciplines, showcasing the organisations and talented teams within them. The lovely Richard, having spearheaded numerous campaigns and initiatives within Growth Engineering to deliver outstanding service to our equally lovely clients, is now being recognised within the CX Awards’ "Professional of the Year" category. Richard is one of just five individuals in the finals of the category and stands among professionals in such well-known organisations as Barclays and Direct Line. Tough competition, but we have faith in you, Rich! The Professional of the Year award is given to super-awesome customer service professionals who respond to a particular problem or opportunity within their organisation and have a big impact on the business - which is something Richard has most definitely achieved at Growth Engineering, having come up with numerous initiatives - such as the Support Centre and Admin Training Academy - over the three years he has been a GEople. Juliette Denny, Growth Engineering’s Managing Director, said: "Rich is an essential part of what keeps Growth Engineering growing and succeeding. I’ve handed him enormous responsibilities, but I always know I’ve placed them in good hands. "Rich’s initiatives have been integral to Growth Engineering delivering an online learning experience that learners love. I’m delighted that he has reached the finals of the Customer Experience Awards - his achievements deserve to be recognised!" Of course, it’s not just about tooting our own horn. Juliette’s praise is thoroughly backed up by customers: Estelle Shepherd, Global Head of People at Hall & Partners: "We’ve been a classic ‘pain in the ass’ client … Rich is endlessly patient. He makes me feel he’s glad to hear from us and turns around every request within hours. He has my heartfelt gratitude and respect - when we launch it will be thanks, in no small measure, to Richard." Monique Griggley, Marketing Manager at Tech Data Corporation: "Richard has an unmatched can-do attitude … His knowledge and passion shine throughout his work so his customers become motivated and quickly adapt to the platform. I look forward to working with Richard in future." Alex Skelt, L&D Manager at Steinhoff UK Retail: "Richard provides a personal level of service and questions us properly about what we want to achieve, leading to better outcomes for both parties. Richard is an outstanding representative for Growth Engineering and one of the key reasons why I’d promote them to others." Aw shucks, guys! It’s so awesome to know our Rich is doing such a fab job. We knew he was, of course, but to hear it from the horse’s mouth (so to speak) warms our cockles. But that’s not all! You may remember (how could you forget?) that our Academy Learning Management System was ranked the #1 LMS in the world for 2015. Well, Craig Weiss, CEO of E-Learning 24/7 and creator of said list, highlighted our ‘extraordinary’ service and support as one of the reasons why we made the top spot. So well done Richard, and the new addition to our Customer Excellence department, Rebecca! If you’re wondering, we find out the exciting results of the Customer Experience Awards on Friday 25th September at the Park Plaza, Westminster Bridge. Fingers crossed, Rich! You can book a place at the awards ceremony via the awards website here. Find out more about what makes our Academy LMS the best in the world by requesting a guided webinar tour - just click the button below and fill out the form!  The post Exciting UK Customer Experience Awards Announcement! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

According to Mike Ettling of SAP (Forbes, June 2015), there are more people exiting the workforce than entering it. This is not only problematic for the sheer number of people leaving work, but there’s another issue at hand: incredibly knowledgeable workers are retiring without passing on their knowledge and skills to the next working generation. How can organisations prevent this huge information drain? The answer - as Mike points out - lies in training and development. Rather than bringing in new staff to replace employees who leave or retire, organisations should instead focus on training existing staff to gain the same skills and promoting them into the now-empty positions. One of the most important parts of this cycle is that knowledgeable employees should help train others. There is a wealth of knowledge contained in the noggins of those approaching retirement - you’re not going to just let them walk out the door without sharing some of it, are you? Online learning is a fantastic platform on which these clever clogs can share their knowledge and help others to reach similar heights. Subject matter experts Essentially, these nearing-retirement-age employees should be regarded as subject matter experts within your organisation. They should offer their wisdom to Learning and Development departments in the creation of training programmes, check the content before it goes live, and may even be able to help with other aspects of implementing training. Sharing knowledge Any Learning Management System worth its weight will have dedicated social learning areas where employees can share knowledge and collaborate. Encouraging these subject matter experts to log on and join the party can be incredibly valuable in helping other employees to increase their own knowledge. It also gives the SMEs a boost to know you find their skills important and worth sharing. Creating eLearning In addition to putting in their ideas to the training and taking a starring role on Learning Management Systems, subject matter experts can easily help with the actual creation of eLearning units. Genie, our game-based elearning authoring tool, for instance, makes it incredibly easy and straightforward for all kinds of contributors to help create eLearning modules. Subject matter experts can help as much or as little as is required - from supplementing the question bank with appropriate questions to creating the entire learning journey from scratch, there’s a whole host of ways SMEs can contribute to the creation of eLearning units. Whatever you do - whatever type of training you use - the important thing to remember is that the people leaving your organisation have an incredible well of untapped knowledge just waiting there. Don’t let them walk out the door with it - put it to good use! Keeping expertise like that within your organisation is sure to make a huge, positive impact over time. Find out more about how Genie makes it simple for anyone to create really engaging game-based eLearning: visit the Genie website to get a demo account or click the button below to read our white paper!    The post Don’t let employees walk away with valuable knowledge! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Despite the best intentions of teachers and educational institutions, school actually teaches us some pretty wrong things - things we should just try to forget about and wipe from our memories… We’re not suggesting you should forget your times tables, what tectonic plate activity is or how photosynthesis works, of course. It’s the actual experience of being at school that should be forgotten. Take what you learnt about learning and chuck it out of the window. Banish it to the pit of eternal boredom. Most Learning and Development training programmes today are created by individuals who had similar school experiences, which teach incorrect - not to mention ineffective - ways of learning. Here’s what we mean: Forget sitting in classrooms in silence Remember all those lessons you spent in silence, listening to the teacher drone on and jotting down notes? You probably hated these lessons more than any others. And we know why: it’s because we actually learn best when we have the opportunity to work with others, collaborate on projects, share ideas and join discussions. Learning shouldn’t be a solo affair. 20% of our knowledge comes directly from working with and observing others - read more here. Ignore what you think you know about learning Contrary to what almost every school in the country seems to believe - or at least believed back in the stone age when we were there! - we don’t learn by sitting passively and listening to our teachers. Sure, it can be useful to make notes so we can refer to them later, but we don’t learn in this way. Instead, we learn by applying learning content to our own prior experiences. When we come to learn new things, we assess our current knowledge and experiences and work to bridge the gap between that level and the level at which we’re being asked to work. You may have heard of the ‘zone of proximal development’ before - it’s the idea that in order to truly learn something, we need it pitched just higher than our current skills level. Too high and we become disenchanted and give up; too low and we don’t recognise the content as worth learning. But the main point to remember is that writing things down or listening to a teacher won’t tap into this special learning zone. In fact, it barely scratches the surface of learning, so don’t do it! Forget what you think you know about tests In school, it’s likely you were asked to regurgitate facts and figures. Being able to recall names, dates and places was seen as ‘proof’ that you had learnt the content. Frankly, that’s balderdash! It’s far more important to be able to apply the knowledge, not just repeat it on demand. You may be able to recall Pythagoras’s theorem, but if you don’t know how to use it to find the length of the hypotenuse - or, more importantly, how this will help your working life - then the effort you put into memorising the equation is worthless. The best kinds of tests will involve assessing how you plan to put your newfound knowledge into practice in real life. In what kind of situation will you need to work out the length of the hypotenuse? How will you apply your knowledge of closing sales when you get back into the office? What is your plan to implement changes in how you manage your team? By specifying how you’ll apply the learning to your life you’ll not only come away with a plan of attack for implementing and using the knowledge, but by relating it to your existing experiences you’ll cement it more fully in your mind. Want to find out more about how we got classroom training all wrong? Download our free white paper below to discover how classroom training should be done!  The post Why you should forget everything you learnt in school appeared first on Growth Engineering.

  At first glance, you might not be able to spot the differences between working in a group and working as a group. They are both pretty similar. Surely any kind of ‘group’ work will be beneficial to learning, right? Well, yes and no. There is strong scientific support for the benefits of having learners working and learning together in groups. However, generally speaking, it is through working together as a group that the best learning outcomes are achieved (Chiriac, 2014). Working in a group If you’re a learner working in a group - and this doesn’t necessarily apply only to classroom-based learning; group work is possible in blended and fully online learning too - then it’s likely you’re sitting together with fellow group members, but working individually on separate parts of an assignment. Say, your group might be working on developing a new sales plan for the coming year. While Sally is researching the Asian market, Daniel is looking into re-writing the proposals and you’re going back through lost accounts to assess what could have gone better. Essentially, you’re working on your own jobs, but will come together at the end to put your separate contributions together into a joint project. Even cooperation isn’t really necessary. It’s possible to get through the whole project without exchanging more than a sentence or two! Working as a group When you work as a group, on the other hand, you’ll see far more benefits when it comes to expanding your knowledge and learning the subject matter. Working as a group is also referred to as ‘real group work’ and ‘meaningful group work’, and denotes a kind of group working whereby learners utilise each other’s skills and work together to achieve a common goal. In other words, when you work as a group all members will be involved in and working on a common task to produce a joint outcome. In the example above, this would mean each member of the group would look at lost opportunities over the past year and collaborate on a plan of action for the coming year. Research (Hansen, 2006) has found that learners value working as a group far more highly than working in a group. Learners find it important that all members take part and make an effort, that clear goals are set for work, that role differentiation exists among members, and that there is clear leadership. So how can these things be achieved in online learning? A good Learning Management System will have great social collaboration areas which will enable and encourage learners to work on projects together, share ideas and help each other flourish. It’s even simpler to get learners working as a group when your solution is blended, with sporadic classroom or workshop events to complement what learners have been learning in their eLearning courses. With blended learning, learners will go through eLearning units in their own time, spend time chatting and discussing the topics on their LMS, then come to a workshop armed with knowledge. Once there, they’ll be set a group task - one which involves all group members working directly together! Learning and working in this way is a form of social, or informal, learning. It’s an important aspect of any training programme, since 20% of our knowledge is gained through observation of and working with others. Find out more about social learning and how to encourage it in your own training plan by downloading our free white paper below!  The post Boost learning with group work! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

Creating eLearning can be a bit of a minefield. Do this; don’t do that. Make sure you do this, but not in that way. Keep things simple; make things fun… Sometimes it’s easier to figure out what to do by looking at what not to do. So here’s our "Definitely Do Not" guide to creating eLearning that won’t make your learners cry with boredom. Definitely do not… Use too much text Okay, okay, ‘too much’ is open to interpretation. But a rule of thumb is that if it looks like a news article, it’s too long. If you need to take a break from reading on-screen text to rest your eyes, it’s too long. If it takes more than a minute to read the text, it’s too long. Definitely do not… Use too little text This applies to both individual eLearning screens and the module overall. You should already know what the most important parts of the topic are, so make sure they are all included. But there’s no need to separate out each individual fact into its own screen - effectively turning a 20-screen eLearning unit into a mammoth 100-screen unit. That’s just unnecessary. Plus you’ll probably give your learners RSI in their clicky finger from clicking ‘Next’ so often! Definitely do not… Overload the screen with images We are visual creatures, so images are important. They can help us to remember certain points, illustrate facts and make processes easy to understand. But when there’s too much visual stimulation our brains tend to get a bit frazzled. It can be hard to focus on the important part of each screen if we’re being bombarded with images left, right and centre. So pick an image which a) illustrates the point, b) will help the learner remember the topic or c) presents facts/stats/figures and leave it at that. Definitely do not… Make it super long Yes, we know you’ve got to make sure you cover the entire topic. But does it really need to be covered all in one go? Separating the learning content into a few bite-size pieces and presenting them as separate eLearning units can make them seem much more digestible - not to mention much less daunting - than sticking everything into one long eLearning module. Learners will be more likely to commit to 12 30-minute-long pieces of eLearning over a couple of weeks than dedicating almost an entire day to a 6-hour-long eLearning behemoth! Definitely do not… Forget to jazz it up! How many times do we need to say it? Learning doesn’t have to be boring! Plain Jane eLearning simply won’t do - it won’t engage your learners, it won’t support learning and it won’t result in the behavioural changes you’re looking to achieve. You can make eLearning more fun and engaging for learners by using an authoring tool which creates game-based eLearning. We’re so passionate that eLearning doesn’t have to be boring that we created our very own content authoring tool that easily creates game-based eLearning at the push of a button - find out more about Genie by clicking the button below!    The post How NOT to create eLearning! appeared first on Growth Engineering.

When eLearning is poorly thought-out and created, learners will become indifferent to learning. They won’t be motivated to learn, or engaged with the learning process. They’ll do what they need to do - sometimes - but not expend an ounce of effort extra. So what can be done to battle learner indifference? It’s obviously not always possible to change the topics being learnt, but the way in which they are taught can certainly be improved! Make it relevant & meaningful Personalising the eLearning by drawing on experiences relevant to the learner can be a great way to bring the learner’s attention to the training and make it relevant to them. An especially useful technique is to encourage learners to think about the topic in relation to their current situation and create a plan for implementing changes. That way, they can see how what they’re doing is of benefit straight away - making it much more meaningful to them. Make it worthwhile Sometimes knowing how to apply the learning to our daily lives and making it relevant isn’t quite enough to turn learner indifference around. If learners need a bit more of a boost to get them engaged with their training, rewards might be the way forward. We do this on the Academy LMS through the use of gamification; allotting points for certain actions and rewarding learners with badges and achievements for making progress in their training. A bit of a morale boost with badges can be sufficient to turn a learner’s indifference into excitement! Make it clear If learners don’t know how well they’re doing, what particular topics they should be concentrating on or where they’re falling behind, they won’t be able to take their training seriously. They’ll see it as ‘just another thing’ they have to do to avoid angering their bosses, and won’t put in the effort that might be required. That’s why it’s so important to provide adequate feedback - not just at the end of the training but throughout, so that learners can see how they are doing in ‘real time’. Once they know what they need to focus on, they’ll be able to put their efforts into that area. Learner indifference will soon melt away and they’ll become passionate learners who are full of beans and excited to progress. There are so many more techniques which can be used to annihilate learner indifference. Check them out in the white paper below!  The post Banish learner indifference with these three tips appeared first on Growth Engineering.

The biggest issue with online learning today is clear: learners aren’t engaged with their training. Despite organisations’ best intentions, a whole heap of eLearning programs are still failing because they aren’t securing learner engagement. And as we’ve seen before, without engagement learners simply won’t be able to increase their knowledge and change their behaviours in the ways we’re hoping they will in order for our training programmes to be a success. eLearning just isn’t interesting It can be argued that pretty much all enforced training is a bit boring. If learners haven’t chosen to undertake the training themselves it can be an uphill battle to get them engaged and enthusiastic. While it’s not quite so difficult to enthuse learners who have chosen to take the training (and even easier if they’ve paid out of their own pocket too), it can still be difficult to get them fully engaged and motivated when the eLearning is boring. eLearning isn’t worth it Now, this is just the impression that learners often get when they’re asked to take training within their organisation. They think it’s not worth the effort. They can’t see how undertaking the eLearning will benefit them, apart from keeping their managers off their backs, so they’ll often give up before they even get started. eLearning doesn’t work If learners don’t find eLearning courses interesting and can’t see how they will help them, of course online learning will get a reputation of not working - because no one will put in the effort needed for it to succeed! It’s a catch-22 situation: learners don’t try because they doubt it’ll make a difference; and it doesn’t make a difference because they don’t try hard enough. D’oh! eLearning is faulty Some eLearning modules and Learning Management Systems are, simply put, naff. They’re full of bugs, difficult to use and navigate, break down, don’t save progress and aren’t SCORM compliant, among a host of other technical problems. It would take the patience of a saint to use these eLearning units - and unfortunately learners aren’t all that patient (nor should they be!). These are some pretty serious criticisms of eLearning which all contribute to the most pervasive, depressing problem with online learning: a huge lack of learner engagement. But don’t fear, there is a way to engage learners! Click the button below to download our free white paper and find out about gamification - the surefire way to engage learners!  The post The most pervasive problem in online learning appeared first on Growth Engineering.