It's no secret that as far as corporate training is concerned, eLearning represents the future of education. Through the use of eLearning experiences, educators can create invaluable seminars for learners - that is, if they make their eLearning courses interactive.
In this article, we'll go over exactly why interactivity is a crucial element of a successful eLearning experience, as well as how you can make your eLearning experiences more interactive.
There's a simple rule for increasing learner engagement in education: Make the material relevant and exciting for the learners, and they will want to learn. As pedagogical science has cemented the importance of learner engagement in education, lecturing has become outdated.
The focus now in academic institutions is on engaging learning experiences that involve hands-on application of knowledge and peer-to-peer learning, and this same approach should be applied to corporate training environments.
Eric Mazur, Balkanski Professor of Physics at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, said that once he focused on interactive learning experiences, he "doubled the learning gains.
"In fact, it tripled once I got better questions to ask," he added. If you want to make sure that you're creating eLearning experiences that actually teach learners how to apply their knowledge to real-life scenarios, incorporating interactivity into your course material is vital.
Why do so many corporate training courses fail to engage the interest of learners? This is a question that plagues Learning and Development (L&D) professionals, and likely will continue to do so. Fortunately, it has a simple answer. Training courses fail because they fail to supply learners with relevant, engaging information.
Research has shown that, as soon as students are asked to learn information that they believe is imminently relevant to them, their interest in - and participation with - that material skyrockets. Unfortunately, making a learning experience relevant to students is easier said than done - at least, until you incorporate interactivity into the mix.
Fortunately, making relevant learning experiences is exponentially easier for educators in the training industry than it is for academic educators. After all, the only information in a training course should be the information explicitly needed in order to train a learner to complete their job at a certain level of quality.
The goal, then, is making those tasks interactive. There are a few ways that educators can create interactive learning experiences.
Gamification. We have an on-demand webinar all about incorporating gamification, but the general concept involves creating in-depth interactive ‘game systems' that teach learners something - for example, having a virtual cash register that trainee cashiers must get a certain ‘high score' on before they can progress the course. Research has provided us with undeniable results that showcase the efficacy of gamification in improving learner engagement.
Utilize the unique advantages of eLearning. Encourage your learners to engage with each other via a forum hosted on your LMS. Even better, go one step further and have them use social media such as Twitter or Instagram for assignments. For example, if you're training a sales team, have them work in teams to create a sales campaign on Twitter for your product or service.
Encourage peer-to-peer learning. Studies indicate that learners often learn more by working with each other than they do by engaging with an educator. Lean into this and create groups or peer-to-peer projects for your learners.
If you want an in-depth look and step-by-step guide showing you how to create interactive content for your LMS, check out these free on-demand webinars:
How to Easily Create Interactive Content in Your LMS Part 1:
And the Part 2 focused on demonstrating different ways to build content using the free, open source Moodle and Totara Learn plugin--H5P!
And there you have it. Everything you need to know about why interactivity in eLearning is important, and what you can do to create interactive eLearning experiences. If you're interested in creating a streamlined, effective eLearning experience but just can't find the time, we'd love to help!
Lambda Solutions specializes in providing educators with innovative, easy-to-use solutions to eLearning problems. To learn more about what we can do for you, click here.