Using Measurement to Promote Learning Effectiveness

What’s the relationship between measurement and learning effectiveness? When most L&D practitioners think about measurement and learning effectiveness, they think about outcomes measures. Examples include: Course enrollment and completion -- although, as we all recognize, this metric does not say anything about learning effectiveness, just that the training was completed (or not). Level I (smile …

Delivering Microlearning for Sustained Learning Effectiveness

How to Determine What Microlearning is Effective and What’s Not There is abundant evidence that breaking up longer learning modules and delivering them as smaller units over time is an effective learning strategy. But there is more to effective microlearning than creating and distributing small learning nuggets. When we designed Intela as a second-generation microlearning …

Using Confidence-based Knowledge Checks to Sustain Learning

Measuring learning immediately following a learning experience (workshops, eLearning, etc.) is standard practice -- but it’s not sufficient. Too often, we perform this immediate measurement, assume that we have achieved our learning goals, and move on. But, for learning to be meaningful it must be persistent over time – it must be sustained. To check …

A Practical Guide to Using Microlearning to Create a Learning Campaign

About six months ago we ran a series of blog posts on Learning Campaigns (here, here here and here). The central idea is that for microlearning to be effective you need to combine the microlearning event with an opportunity for retrieval practice. And, depending on your learning goals, you might want to include a final …

Using Microlearning to Ensure Long Term Mastery

In our past two posts we examined strategies for using microlearning for (a) delivering new content and (b) creating a sustainment learning strategy. This week we will consider how to use microlearning in the case where there is a large learning event and the goal is to achieve and sustain mastery. Returning to the classic …

Sustaining Learning with Microlearning

Slight change of plan. This week we will discuss using microlearning for sustained learning; next week we’ll look at the mastery strategy. Last week we discussed a microlearning strategy that can be deployed when the microlearning is the learning (there is no large-scale learning event). This week we will consider how to use microlearning in …

When the Microlearning is the Learning

In our last blog post we described three Learning Campaigns, representing three different microlearning strategies: Learn – when microlearning is the learning. There is no prior large-scale learning event. Master – using microlearning to ensure long term learning mastery after a traditional learning event. Sustain – using microlearning to sustain long term learning after a traditional learning event. This week we will look more …

Do You REALLY Know What Training Transfer Is? Maybe Not.

When I teach learning workshops, I often ask the attendees: “What is transfer of training? How do we know it has occurred?’ Of course, I always get the same answer: “If the learner can apply what he or she has learned in a course back on the job, then training transfer has occurred.” So, I …

Why Are You Quizzing Me on What I Already Know?

Intela has a variety of evidence-based Microactivities that improve and sustain learning. One of the more popular activities is the Learning Sprint. A Learning Sprint is a flashcard-like exercise in which learners are required to answer questions from an item pool over a period of several days or weeks (exact scheduling can be set by …

You Have a Test. Have You Studied? Good. Are You Confident? Not So Fast.

Last week we showed the results of a survey that provided evidence that learners overwhelmingly choose to study for an exam by re-reading the course material, to the exclusion of other more effective study methods. But what about confidence? Who is more confident: learners who restudy or learners who take practice tests?  And how does …