In today’s ever-changing corporate world, continuing education has become a corner stone to success. The speed with which new technologies and emerging business practices are transforming industries requires constant learning on the part of employees.
In this context, Active Learning emerges as an effective and dynamic approach to enhancing digital corporate training.
Index
What is Active Learning?
Active Learning is an interactive and participatory training methodology that actively involves participants in the learning process.
In contrast to passive learning, in which students are spectators, Active Learning involves them firsthand through hands-on exercises, group discussions, simulations and other engaging activities.
This approach not only improves student engagement but also fosters a deeper and more lasting understanding of concepts.
8 tips for making the most of Active Learning in your digital training courses
Structuring a corporate training course by taking advantage of Active Learning requires careful, interaction-oriented design.
Now we want to provide you with a general framework, broken down into 8 essential tips, which can be used as the basis for your corporate e-learning.
1. Clear and specific objectives
Define from the beginning and clearly the objectives of the course and what, in fact, you want to achieve with Active Learning.
For example, it could be used for those courses aimed at implementing new technologies, developing specific skills, or adapting to changes in industry-that is, for courses that need a lot of practice during training.
2. Create interactive and engaging content
Use a wide variety of interactive content such as videos, quizzes, simulations, hands-on exercises, case studies, and games to engage your employees.
Watch out: playing games is fine, but all materials must be relevant and focused on the learning goals!
3. Base learning on real-world situations
Structure the course around real situations relevant to the business context: this means providing for solving practical scenarios and coming up with innovative solutions to train your employees in what will be their real jobs.
4. Group activities and discussions
It encourages collaboration among participants through group activities, online forums, brainstorming sessions and discussions.
The in-company training is the perfect context for exchanging ideas and sharing experiences that enrich participants and provide them with inspiration to address their future challenges.
5. Continuous feedback and evaluation
Integrate into the course moments – at regular intervals – where you provide feedback. This will allow you to assess the quality of the course through the progress of your employees and for them to make some adjustments if they have not learned certain concepts to the best of their ability.
Using quizzes at the end of the units is certainly a useful means to better monitor learning.
6. Personalization and adaptability
Offer flexibility to Learners in how they learn, allowing them to choose activities or modules that best suit their needs or interests.
7. Use of specific technologies for corporate training
Leverage digital platforms and tools to facilitate Active Learning.
A Learning Management System (LMS) such as Litmos, for example, allows your employees to enjoy their corporate training intuitively, on whatever media they have available and without heavy apps to download to their devices.
Or Elucidat, our favorite authoring tool, which gives you the ability to create courses that are multimedia and actively engage the Learner, making corporate training a little more…lively. 😜
Then if your employees are not all in the same place, but you want them to be able to conduct training in contact with each other, with Zoom you organize webinars where you can share the screen, record sessions, and interact with all participants. Here are 5 tips on how to best present yourself in a corporate meeting.
8. Monitoring the results of the course
To find out whether the course designed for your employees was effective, you can introduce questionnaires to collect post-training feedback or on-the-job performance measurements.
This way you can understand what is needed to improve future e-learning courses.
In essence, the key is to keep interactivity, engagement and participant involvement high throughout the course, pandering to the specific needs of the company and employees.
Strategies for effective Active Learning
Active Learning strategies should be deployed only when necessary to achieve the learning goals of corporate training
We at Apprendoo would like to reveal some of them to you: in the end, choose the one you think is best for your employees!
First, here are some questions you need to ask yourself before choosing an Active Learning strategy:
1) What skills should my students be able to perform at the end of the online class session?
2) What active learning strategies will enable my students to practice this skill?
3) When will my students connect and engage with the information and ideas?
4) When will they reflect on what they have learned?
Let’s get started!
- The survey
This is a quick and easy way to test Learners’ opinions or thought processes, even in real time. They can be used at the beginning, end or at specific times in a lesson to engage and assess employees.
- Thinking-Conversation-Sharing
It consists of posing students with a brief problem, scenario or question and allowing them time and opportunity to: reflect individually, discuss it with a colleague, share their findings or insights with the rest of the Learners.
This strategy not only gives Learners time to process and apply their knowledge and skills on their own, but also gives them the opportunity to consult and collaborate with a partner.
This process usually leads your employees to more thoughtful responses and makes it easier to share with the rest of the group.
- Small group discussions
These are a great way to analyze a problem or issue in more depth. You can propose a question or problem, or provide students with a scenario or case study to work on.
The benefits of Active Learning in corporate training
Active Learning in digital corporate training offers a range of significant advantages that make its use a value-added to corporate e-learning.
1. Greater engagement, thanks to hands-on exercises, simulations and discussions, which increase interest in the training process.
2. Acquisition of practical skills, because employees have the opportunity to directly apply what they learn, making the learning process more applicable and transferable to the real work environment.
3. Improved knowledge retention, as direct interaction with concepts through exercises, practical cases and discussions makes it more likely that employees will memorize and thoroughly understand the content.
4. Easy adaptability to change. Active Learning teaches employees to be flexible and adapt to constant change and new technologies-a crucial quality in an ever-changing business environment.
5. Increased training efficiency, because it is an instructional methodology that allows participants to focus on their specific needs and tailor the learning path to suit their individual styles and times.
6. Collaboration and team building. Active Learning encourages collaboration among employees. Through group activities, discussions and the sharing of ideas, it fosters the development of relationships within the team, promoting a more cohesive work environment.
7. Increased Motivation, through strategies that not only have employees actively involved in learning, but also allow them to see the direct applicability of concepts on the job.
These benefits reflect how Active Learning can revolutionize and optimize corporate training, contributing to more effective and continuous employee growth.
In short
The use of Active Learning strategies enhances your employees’ learning experience through dynamic approaches such as surveys, discussions, and collaborative projects.
These strategies, suitable for various learning styles, foster deep engagement and develop soft skills. In addition, the flexibility of these strategies allows for implementation at different stages along the way, providing continuous learning and preparing students for challenges in the field.
In sum, Active Learning strategies not only enhance teaching, but enrich learning by providing skills crucial for success in a changing world.
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