What is a good learning experience?
A good learning experience focuses on authentic, interactive, and collaborative work to increase engagement and improve knowledge retention. In addition, it enhances learner value, encourages social learning, promotes learner self-assessment, and is query-based. A good learning experience reinforces learning and development and, ultimately, helps improve employee performance and productivity.
With mass unemployment, rising inequality, and a lack of talent, the digital revolution has put a premium on re-scaling and up-scaling. As a result, organizations have been instrumental in helping their workforce through better learning experiences. Indeed, with the ever-changing context of the workforce, improving the learning experience has become a necessity rather than a necessity.
In this article, we will discuss everything about the learning experience, its importance, and how it affects learner engagement. We will go deeper into this topic to find the information you need to provide an effective learning experience. In addition, we will show you how to use LMS software to create a learner experience that enhances learner engagement.
Source: The Future of Jobs Report
The implications of technological and demographic change are far-reaching for work and skills. Modern organizations are well aware of this fact, and many have tried their best to adjust to the new reality. In fact, with the ever-increasing global workforce, 65% of organizations prefer to retrain their existing employees.
It is only scratching the surface because comprehensive education offers many benefits beyond that. Thus, organizations should prioritize creating a culture of continuous learning.
But even so, every organization needs to focus on the learning experience that it provides. By improving the learning experience, organizations have the opportunity to offer training that enables their employees to succeed.
1. What is a Learning Experience?
There are three main elements to overall corporate training: employee (trainee), instructor, and system (technology tools and learning process). The capability of this setup depends on the learning experience to enable employees to successfully prepare and qualify.
So, what is the definition of the learning experience?
Learning experience refers to the context or common context in which the trained person experiences the learning environment, including the physical or virtual environment, the instructor, the course design, and the emotional and cognitive cultures of the organization.
In other words, the learning experience is an interaction (traditional or modern), program, course, or any other experience that involves learning. The learning experience highlights the purpose of learning, rather than how or where it is delivered.
Now that you know what a good learning experience is, let’s consider the types of learning experiences.
Types of learning experiences
According to the American Speech Language Hearing Association (ASHA), there are three types of learning experiences:
Individual or self-study
Self-study is exactly as its name suggests. This is a case where trainees engage individually, with zero interaction with other participants or instructors, using the same learning materials.
This approach is embodied in contextual experiences and requires learners to understand and apply it on their own. General self-study courses include newsletters, audio files, video recordings, and journals.
Group
It represents a typical learning experience where learners engage with each other, materials, and instructors. Group courses include training sessions, workshops, study materials, presentations, learning, and games.
Blended
The mixed learning experience combines the power of self-study and group formats. Thus, organizations offer instructor-led training, online learning, or group sessions.
2. What is Learner Engagement?
In essence, learning engagement is a degree of interaction and collaboration with one learner’s instructor, other learners, and learning materials. It clarifies the quality and quantity of learner participation, commitment, and motivation, not only to reach the set milestone but also to acquire relevant knowledge.
Internally engaged learners engage in training, process information more deeply, and often seek clarification on concepts that escape them. In addition, they are keen to participate in discussions, prioritize challenging tasks, and are confident in their abilities. In addition, engaged learners are 2.5 times more likely to record excellent performance than their actively disconnected counterparts.
But, what is the need for learners to get the highest degree of engagement?
Dimensions of learner engagement
Getting maximum engagement from learners, especially in corporate training, is much easier said than done. This is because learning engagement is a continuous process that takes place simultaneously on three fronts, namely: emotional, cognitive, and behavioral levels.
Let’s look at three aspects of learner engagement:
The emotional level
Learners are emotionally engaged when, during training, they feel naturally connected to other learners, instructors, and training contexts. At this level, learners feel connected to the learning journey and the goals of the course. Therefore, they are fully committed to training.
In addition, learners experience low levels of anxiety and are emotionally involved in how the whole group performs.
The cognitive level
On the other hand, when learners are engaged on an academic level, they feel good about their work. In addition, they rely on their ability to understand new knowledge and gain in-depth skills.
At this level, learners also find clever ways to memorize complex concepts. For example, some trainees will take it upon themselves to prepare notes to memorize the steps of the software testing procedure. Others will map out the mind to organize the new knowledge and represent it in a way that is hard to forget.
The behavioral level
Finally, behavioral engagement is superficial and, therefore, easy to observe. It is the lowest form of learner engagement, and its indicators include increased attention span, participation, perseverance, concentration, and participation in training activities. In addition, learners are always at work and adhere to certain rules.
3. How Does Learning Experience Impact Learner Engagement?
Consider this Learning engagement is the perception that is gained when the learning experience interacts with the learner’s self-efficacy. From this point of view, we can conclude that a great learning experience is not an end in itself, but a means to improve learner engagement. This is an important component, which, combined with the self-efficacy of the learner, leads to better engagement.
That being said, in every corporate training model, it’s easy to point out great learning experiences but more difficult to figure out why they feel good. Complexity makes it difficult to formulate how learning experiences affect learner engagement. Probably a factor as to why they’re doing so poorly in corporate training programs.
In this section, we will discuss the characteristics of the learning experience and show how each one affects the aspects of the learning engagement. Here are the features of an effective learning experience:
It allows learners to apply concepts beyond the classroom.
A good learning experience is authentic, realistic, and informative. An authentic learning experience consists of learning tasks that relate to life outside the boardroom or learning environment. In other words, the works are connected to the ideas you are teaching, as well as to the real world.
Most importantly, the works are built around relevant and real characters and current events. In this way, tasks prevent academic overload or distractions, thus encouraging learners to take action and do things that are important to them and others.
The best way to create an authentic learning experience is to involve experts so that relevant activities can be identified and appropriate problems can be solved for learners. In addition, you should avoid using content that contains details for entertainment. By doing this, you will create emotional engagement among the learners and make them feel connected to the training.
It helps learners understand and appreciate new information.
A great learning experience focused on increasing the value of learners. Put it differently, and the experience should be based on the learner’s basic strengths. It should be purposeful and focused on the laser to help learners understand concepts that they could not do on their own.
Remember, learning to complete a milestone does not have long-term significance. Instead, it wastes time and money, and learners are more likely to be frustrated and isolated. On the other hand, when people learn toward a clearly defined goal, it is easier to justify the time and effort spent on the learning experience.
In that case, when you believe in providing value and constantly working toward that goal, it becomes easier for learners to stick to experience. Learners will most likely buy the idea and feel permanently internally motivated. In turn, what you get increases the engagement of knowledge and practice.
It spurs learner interactivity.
An interactive learning experience combines a fascinating narrative. It takes advantage of visual focal points, such as videos, flow charts, posters, and flash cards to keep learners engaged.
Visual content adds a fascinating, aesthetic component to the learning experience. Also, if the visuals are interesting, relevant, and meaningful, they add to the fun and make the learner feel good. As a result, learners become attached to the lessons and often value the learning process as well as the results.
It encourages learners to work collaboratively.
A mutual learning experience promotes a shared sense of ownership and responsibility among learners. Pour easily It includes group activities that motivate learners to gain strength by working with others. You need more than luck to succeed in affiliate commerce. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
4. How Can Learner Engagement Be Improved?
As we have seen, the Importance of learning experience influences learner engagement strategies in many ways. Therefore, to improve learner engagement, organizations should strive to create the ultimate Importance of the learning experience. There are four invaluable ways to create a learning experience that works. These include:
Evolving past traditional learning metrics
In order to create a highly effective learning experience, it is important to align the learning process with your organizational goals and objectives. In addition, it is important to eliminate traditional learning metrics, such as completion rate, test scores, and course satisfaction. The metrics are good, but they never indicate whether the program is improving learner or organizational performance.
Instead, outline targeted concrete results and KPIs such as retention, revenue growth, profitability, and employee engagement. You should then design and implement a Learning and Development (L&D) startup to achieve the desired results.
Personalizing content
Instead, outline targeted concrete results and KPIs such as retention, revenue growth, profitability, and employee engagement. You should then design and implement the Learning and Development (L&D) startup to achieve the desired results.
As such, it allows you to provide personalized, contextual, and relevant learning. In addition, you will keep learners in complete control of their progress, thus achieving better results.
Implementing the right technology
We’ve mentioned three key aspects, but how can learner engagement be further enhanced? Well, you have to adopt the technology and use it to support your strategy. Remember, when it comes to creating a learning experience that works, technology is workable, and strategy is the driver. That means; First, you need to create a well-defined learning experience strategy. Once in place of the strategy, you can think of a technology that best meets your training needs.
When it comes to the learning experience, the best LMS software doesn’t necessarily mean all the bells and whistles. Instead, a good LMS should be user-friendly, and offer special features such as AI-powered learning, gameplay, and video learning, to name a few. In addition, weigh your needs and know the questions to ask before buying LMS software.
A good example of an LMS solution that facilitates the best learning experience is Do Cebo. It is a powerful learning management system that leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to facilitate better learning experiences. AI-powered technology enhances the learner’s experience through deep personalization and automation of time-consuming tasks. In addition, it facilitates informal learning, facilitates learning management, and, above all, uses gamification to keep learners motivated.
Creating a Proper Learner Experience Design
Learner Experience Design (LXD) anchors the learning experience to ensure that the learning process is relevant, enjoyable, interesting, and informative.
LXD is a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach that uses principles of acquisition, usability, and convenience to support education. LXD strives to improve outcomes while retaining learners’ application and knowledge. Pour easily This enables both employers and employees to reap the benefits of LMS software.
There are different stages in the learning experience development process, including:
Evolving past traditional learning metrics
- Strategies: To create your strategy, first understand the goals and needs of your learners and the organization. Keep in mind that the purpose of the learning experience is to help learners acquire the best knowledge and skills. For this reason, you need to develop a holistic strategy for measurable goals.
- Requirements: In addition, establish the functional and material requirements necessary to achieve the set goals. This makes it easier to articulate the needs of the learners. Even better, it helps you define the key topics, logistics, methods, and activities you need to make the best learning experience.
- Structure. comes into play when developing structured courses. Having a solid structure gives you the power to create courses that are relevant and logical to your learners.
- Interaction. Interaction includes lectures, materials, discussions, and activities that shape the learning experience. This is an important step where you explain how learners will access and access materials, skills, and knowledge.
- Feedback and data. The final step in designing a learning experience is where you track and analyze the learner’s progress. At this stage, you will need powerful analytics and feedback tools to accurately gauge the progress made by the learners. In addition, this phase involves the use of communication tools to provide feedback to learners.
How Can Organizations Provide Good Learning Experiences?
The importance of learning experience in today’s multifaceted workforce is a low-hanging fruit for forward-thinking organizations. However, we are at the height of the fourth industrial revolution, and the principles of employment and skills are changing rapidly.
In addition, new technologies have led to innovation, such as teleconferencing, remote working, and co-working. Beyond them, there are rows of geographical, political, social, economic, and demographic developments, each of which tends to revolve around the principles of manpower.
We cannot deny that changes have generally affected the need for new skills and employment almost simultaneously. As such, organizations need to anticipate further changes and actively adapt to future prosperity. This is because what explains today’s great experience will not happen two or five years from now.
Therefore, you must take a step, and as soon as possible. But, remember, there’s no all-inclusive equation for an awesome learning involvement. That way, you have to master the experience, the experience, and the learning experience. You can take a leaf from the examples of valuable learning experiences and keep up with the learning trends. Remember, implementing education in corporate training increases knowledge retention by 60% and productivity by 30%.