In this fast-paced world, all you hear from people around you is, “Wish we had more than 24 hours a day!” The market is very competitive, which requires you to do your job, be socially active and as they say, last but not the least, keep learning something new. And all this in just 24 hours per day.
So as an instructional designer, how can you save your learners’ time? How your eLearning courses can fit in “24-hour” without compromising on their learning?
Here are few ways to address this issue.
Keep it simple and brief:
We all, at some point get distracted when the content is too long or heavy. Instead of beating around the bush, keep the content to the point by aligning them to the properly framed learning objectives. The best way to do this is by dividing a complete course into topics. After each topic, make sure that the learner achieves a learning objective.
Next, keep the content simple and brief by proper chunking, giving appropriate images and visual effects complementary to the text. Using short videos, demonstrations too can save learners’ time without affecting the learning.
Make it more practical than theoretical:
Humans learn more quickly when they are involved in the learning process. Make your courses interactive by including various inter-activities such as click on images, tabs, numbers and many more. This creates an engaging and attractive environment for learners to quicken the learning process.
Here are a few screenshots for interactivities:
It sometimes happens that whenever we watch a movie, we start imagining ourselves in that story as those characters and place ourselves in those situations. This tendency can be exploited and made maximum use of in eLearning by including storytelling and scenarios in eLearning courses. This makes it faster for learners to grasp as they can relate themselves to situations.
Make it challenging but not stressful:
Recently there was a game application called “Flappy bird,” which gained immense popularity because of its high difficulty level. It was highly challenging to reach required scores and clear levels.
We all love challenges, right? So why not include them in your courses to assess the learners’ newly acquired knowledge. Use fun games, puzzles, riddles in your courses to test your learners’ knowledge. Provide feedback then and there when learners submit their answers. This saves the summary time, which can be avoided because the feedback in a way reinforces learning. But remember to keep the challenges simple and encouraging.
These time-saving ways will help your learners save time. Have any more to add? Do share with us!