The way people learn at work has changed rapidly. Long-form training methods are no longer the ideal standard. Instead, employers see better training results from short, broken-up, concise learning formats.
Spaced learning is one of the methods that is helping employees and other trainees retain more information over time. This method of learning engages employees while also giving them time to analyze the information they have just learned.
Here are four ways to implement spaced learning into your training program:
- Combine spaced learning with microlearning
- Repeat content in different formats
- Track results with quizzes
- Include interactive methods and real-world simulations
Before we explore these four areas, this article will give a brief overview of the fundamentals of spaced learning and describe how to implement it to enhance your training curriculum.
Overview of Spaced Learning
What is Spaced Learning?
Spaced learning is based on the well-researched theory that learning is enhanced when lessons are repeated after a certain lapse in time. In other words, learners are exposed to information multiple times with spaces in between. This is a simple but important concept that can make a big difference in how well people retain what they’ve learned.
Anyone who’s ever attended an intensive training such as a day or weekend seminar will be able to appreciate a common obstacle to learning. You are given hours of training and feel like you understand it. However, you have trouble remembering it within a few days or weeks. This isn’t a flaw in your learning ability but a reflection of how the brain works.
Benefits of Spaced Learning
It turns out that it’s perfectly normal to forget information soon after you’ve learned it. Hermann Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve found that learners tend to forget material at an exponential rate during the first few days after being exposed to it. Ebbinghaus also found that memory could be strengthened through repetition and by using better memory representation techniques.
Spaced learning is one of the best tools to improve retention. As Harvard Magazine reports, spaced learning can improve learning by as much as 50%. Whether you need to train people on new software, help them pass certification, or undergo compliance training, it’s essential to understand how spaced learning improves retention. There’s evidence that spaced learning helps in fields as diverse as sales, language learning, and medicine.
How to Implement Spaced Learning Into Your Training Program
Here are four guidelines to successfully implement spaced learning to improve the results of your training program.
1. Combine Spaced Learning With Microlearning
Microlearning is another essential principle of learning and is closely related to spaced learning. Microlearning focuses on delivering information in short, manageable chunks, rather than trying to dump everything on learners all at once. This idea fits perfectly with spaced learning as you can deliver smaller nuggets of information with intervals in between.
The three areas to combine spaced learning with microlearning are:
- Product training:
Providing short bursts of information that are spaced out over time will give customers and partners the confidence they need to use your product or services effectively. - Compliance training:
Make compliance training more engaging and effective by breaking up the learning, which will allow employees to internalize critical compliance information more easily. - Onboarding:
Don’t bombard new hires with a plethora of information. Instead, create manageable-sized chunks of information for employees to digest more easily.
2. Repeat Content in Different Formats
One of the keys to spaced learning is to mix up the approach. People absorb information more thoroughly when they receive it via different senses and formats. Repetition is one of the cornerstones of learning; however, repeating the information is far more effective if you vary the method. Someone can listen to the same lecture or study the same infographic many times and will quickly get bored. If you mix it up, however, you’re more likely to hold their attention. For example:
- Create short modules that can be quickly absorbed.
- Show videos: Video learning is one of the top eLearning trends right now. Interactive videos are especially powerful for engagement.
- Create gamified exercises.
- Show infographics: Information can often be conveyed more succinctly using visual tools than by making people read long blocks of text.
- Give frequent quizzes.
Using various methods, with regular breaks, helps keep learners involved and prevents boredom.
3. Include Interactive Methods and Real World Simulations
One of the best ways people learn is by doing. Incorporating interactive strategies and real-world simulations into your training improves engagement and fits nicely with spaced learning. Traditional didactic learning methods, such as printed material and lectures, still have a place. However, it’s important to combine these with interactive methods, such as gamified exercises and interactive videos.
Role-playing is also a powerful way to engage learners and reinforce the material. This is especially helpful when it comes to anything involving human behavior, such as sales and customer service training or compliance training. With this approach, it’s essential to carefully monitor the exercises and ensure people stay on the right track. If learners aren’t well versed in the material and there aren’t qualified trainers to correct them when appropriate, their mistakes can be reinforced.
Incorporate Spaced Learning Into All Your Training
Spaced learning isn’t a mere trend or gimmick but a process based on substantial research. It’s a proven way to help employees and other learners absorb information more efficiently and to help them retain what they’ve learned. This learning style is appropriate for all types of training in any industry. It’s not difficult to adopt spaced learning for your purposes, and you’ll find that your employees will respond favorably to it.
By Knowledge anywhere