Tips for employees to manoeuvre online learning
Online short courses have been made available to expand one’s skills, especially as an employee to grow your career.
Despite strides to grow one’s skills set, CEO at G&G Advocacy, Micheal Gullan, cited research that employees tend to immediately forget new information or skills they have learnt. The biggest drop in retention happens soon after learning.
G&G Advocacy is an e-Learning consultancy in corporate.
He therefore advised employers to familiarise their employees with the “spaced repetition technique” to quickly grasp and retain information for a long period of time, instead of instant forgetfulness.
Instead of cramming information, the spaced repetition technique means an employee breaks an online course, or workshop, into short sessions where they constantly repeat the same information.
This technique has proven to be more effective, as it enhances long-term knowledge retention and application in the workplace.
Gullan explained information should be broken down into pieces for easier understanding, while repeating crucial facts, instead of hoarding staff members with bulk information.
“Our data shows that employees’ ability to retain information and apply new skills plummets unless the learning content includes repetitions and reinforces new information. When courses are too long and are completed in one ‘burst’, employees leave the session with a head full of new facts, forgetting most of it just hours later.
“When key information is repeated using interactive experiences, quizzes, case studies, and summaries, our data shows better recall and application in the workplace,” said Gullan.
Moreover, meaningful content is often easier to remember, unlike lengthy and dull content, it tends to be tedious, making it hard to remember.
“The way courses are presented, it impacts learning outcomes. Employees recall more when the learning material is organised, logical, interesting, and interactive. Courses that are divided into bite-sized sections, with interesting and interactive spaced repetition, are a winning formula,” said Gullan.
He added employees’ emotional well-being is pivotal for retaining information, noting lack of sleep and stress are main factors.
“When employees become stressed about e-Learning, it becomes more difficult to remember the information, which creates even more stress. Sleep helps the brain sort and store information, because lack of sleep declines memory exponentially as the brain weeds out information,” said Gullan.
The Star
hope.mafu@inl.co.za