Creating Meaningful Interactions

Adults learning in class

My clients always request engaging eLearning courses. A best practice in instructional design has always been to include interactions, where learners “participate” in the course. For example, an interaction could ask learners to select a link, or a button to proceed; or perform a drag and drop exercise or complete quiz questions. Adult learning theory states that adults learn by doing, through experienced-based instructions and when they have a motivation to learn.

Our interactions, however, are not always experiential and do not take advantage of a learner’s motivation to learn.

Here’s an example. I once went through an eLearning course that had me selecting various speakers on a panel to hear what they had to say. The interaction did “force” the learner’s participation but was the interaction helpful in the learning process? It was not.

We should ask ourselves two questions when developing an eLearning interaction.

1.       Does it help the learner add to their knowledge of the topic?

2.       Does it take advantage of their self-motivation to learn?

Now more than ever, we need to make our learner engagement compelling. My clients have started requesting eLearnings with no interactions or quizzes. I’ve been wondering about the reason for this trend.

I think that in this age of YouTube videos where users can learn by watching, without a need for knowledge checks or interactions, they are preferring this “sit-back” learning approach. Our learners just want us to tell them about the material in a video format. And they want us to make it entertaining!

And yet, there is still one interaction that they are receptive to, and that is scenarios and use cases. They want examples that they can relate to. This is directly tied to another adult learning theory premise: relevance. We must make our interactions relevant to their work experience.

How do we create meaningful interactions?

Our examples must always have the objective of adding to our learner’s knowledge base, appeal to their need to learn, and be relevant to their work.

For example, an organization introduces a new application that changes how the accounting department enters vendor information.

Clearly, in this example, an employee whose job is to enter vendor information is motivated to learn the new way to do it. You have motivation. This interaction should focus on adding new knowledge and selecting a relevant example. Ideally, you would have a scenario, a screenshot of the application and demonstrate how to enter this information. Oftentimes, in organizations, there are specific ways that they want to use a system, like using a naming convention. You would weave in this information as part of your interaction.

This type of interaction works and is effective.

Whatever eLearning course you are working on, always think about how the learner will learn from your interactions. If they are not adding to the learner’s knowledge, then leave the interaction out. The learner will thank you for this consideration.