How does your company’s L&D team come up with learning materials? What is their philosophy on content volume? Your answer could explain how your training performs in real-world scenarios. If the L&D team’s core strategy is based on the ‘more is better’ concept, they could be missing the boat entirely.
Content in a learning platform is a lot like general content on the web. The best online marketers in the business understand that volume has little to do with success. To succeed with online content, you have to be willing to optimize. You have to be willing to create valuable content specifically tailored to the people who will consume it.
Learning content is no different. If you want your corporate training to perform at peak, your L&D team has to get away from the volume mindset. More is not better if what you already have is not optimized for learners.
To help you better understand the concept, here are four characteristics of optimized training content, compliments of Salt Lake City’s Fulcrum Labs:
1. Based in Science
Optimized training content is rooted in science. It is content that is developed according to the latest research in cognitive science that seeks to understand how people learn, retain, and implement information. Simply put, it is content designed to take advantage of how the human brain naturally works.
It is clear that memorization and regurgitation is not the best way to learn. It simply trains people to retain information long enough to pass a test. Such learning is not training. It is test prep. Optimized content moves beyond memorization to tap into those things that motivate learners to retain and master.
2. An Emphasis on Mastery
Speaking of mastery, optimized training content emphasizes it. Optimized content is not created solely for the purpose of allowing learners to meet training requirements by merely completing a course. It is content that both encourages and achieves mastery.
This sort of content benefits both learner and the L&D team. Learners benefit through true mastery while the L&D team can analyze results to better understand what kind of training learners need in the future.
3. Open to Personalization
Next up, optimized training content is open to personalization. In other words, it can be adapted to whatever delivery methods are chosen. Optimized training content is not a one-size-fits-all content that can only be delivered one way. It is so much more flexible because it can be personalized.
Personalization improves competency-based learning by empowering learners to direct their own learning paths. Self-direction turns students into learners, improves mastery, and reinforces behaviors that continue outside the learning platform.
4. Open to Autonomy
A big part of personalization and self-direction is autonomy. Optimized training content is designed with autonomy in mind. Content creators seeking to optimize what they do with an eye on learner independence. They create content that gives learners choices.
Some learners want more opportunities to practice what they have learned. On an optimized learning platform, this is possible. Other learners want to customize the feedback they receive. Again, optimized content facilitates that.
There is something to be said about volume. The more content available to learners, the more information will be at their fingertips. But volume without optimization is meaningless. More is not better if training content is not optimized for learners.
This brings us back to the question that started this post: how well does your corporate training perform? If your L&D team is not achieving the results you expect, perhaps it is time to take a look at the content they are producing.
