It’s time for some real talk. This may go without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway: To draw people to your learning content and engage with it, build more engaging and compelling learning content.
That was the easy part. How do you figure out what engagement looks like? To find out, spend time surfing sites on the Internet that compel you to click around and seek more information about their things. Pay attention to what drew you in the first place and identify words, or wording that compelled you to click to learn more.
Questions to Ask
Next, ask the difficult questions: Does the learning content…
- Make it obvious from the first moment how it aligns to the work learners do and/or are expected to do?
- Positively challenge learners to excel?
- Tell the story of what is new or what is changing and why in ways that are easily assimilated?
- Lift learners up and honor their existing skill and knowledge? Do this instead of making the case that learners don’t know something—or worse, it’s something that they “must” know and know how to do to “win.”
- Invite learners in visually compelling ways? For “required” templates, work with whomever mandated the template to build something that is friendlier for compelling learning content. Find out what exactly is “required” in the template. Maybe just first and last slides with less intrusive footers is an acceptable workaround. Key point: If you don’t ask and engage in a discussion of needs, you will never know what is possible.
- Provide specific details as to who the learners are?
- Offer variations for learner groups with unique roles and responsibilities? One size does not fit all.
- Take more of the learners’ time than is necessary?
- Reek of “sorry, we didn’t have time to build something more interesting,” or “this is what we always do here”?
- Take itself too seriously and not offer a hint of humor, positive messaging, and maybe some fun now and then, as appropriate?
Solicit Learner Input
Now what? Craft a plan for taking a wrecking ball to whatever you can. If you’re part of a team, engage the team to think outside of the class or course in new ways. Brainstorm and build prototypes and share them with a subset of the learning populations. Ask learners for their ideas and for feedback and apply it as often as possible. I’m sure they’ll be happy to get real with you!
