How to have your training participants learn and retain more

1) Less is More

A major cause of poor knowledge retention after training is having far too much information to absorb.

Really effective Learning should follow the dictum that Less is More.

In this case, try having bite-sized learning objectives – ones that are highly focused on a clearly defined outcome. It’s been demonstrated that learning broken down into smaller, more manageable chunks is far more likely to be retained and remembered for much longer.

The same goes for the length of your Learning sessions. People can only concentrate for relatively short spans of time, after which their capacity to recall novel information wanes dramatically. Short sessions run frequently are far better for training retention rates than having one gargantuan blowout Learning module.

2) You Can Tell Them A Story

A great way to bump up your knowledge retention statistics is to exploit the fact that we remember things better when we have an emotional connection to the thing being learned. A great way to create that link is by storytelling.

How do you do that?

Creating a narrative, with situations and characters that your employees will relate to, helps to get across key learning objectives in an engaging, easy-to-absorb way. Don’t get too carried away and create an over-complex story, however. It’s easy to be swept along with a too-detailed narrative and forget what the learning objectives were supposed to be in the first place, as well as remembering point 1- less is more.

3) Active Participants Will Remember more

Many traditional models of learning often view the learner as a passive recipient of knowledge.  Better outcomes from considering designing content that regards your trainees as active participants.

So, how do you go about this?

Research shows that active learning increases engagement and leads to much better retention of new knowledge. Use interactive activities, scenarios, and simulations to really bring your trainees into the learning environment. I’ve had great success engaging participants with change management Simulations which test out their knowledge and put them on the spot to choose and implement tactics.

4) Test, quiz, ask!

Here your Teachers were correct, one of the simplest knowledge retention techniques is to incorporate a quiz in your learning content. It helps the learner keep track of their own progress and lets them see what they have learned and retained. It also provides you with data about how effective your learning module is, and whether it needs improving

To maximize retention, you should again follow the Less is More maxim and test more often, after each unit or module.

That way, you’re testing for more tightly-defined learning objectives, and your trainees will find it easier to focus on and remember the specified material, rather than a whole bunch of things.

5) Repeat to retain

Another simple way to boost learning retention is through good, old-fashioned repetition. Now, that might sound boring, but it’s how you get your trainees to reiterate which is s important.

Repeating new knowledge or tasks is crucial in allowing the information to move into a learner’s long-term memory.

This doesn’t mean you write the same thing 20 times. In a learning  context, repetition can be achieved through the use of techniques such as simulations and role-playing, or asking participants to summaries views and explain to the group as well as having regular refresher units post-learning.

Simulations are great for embedding previously taught skills and allow your trainees to get a real feel of how different skills can come together to address a situation. By meshing skills together in this way, learning retention is an attainable goal.

6) Apply the learning to the real world

The more abstract a concept is, the harder it is to keep it in mind. That’s because we find it harder to memorize things that seem to be unrelated or irrelevant to our environment or needs.

It’s useful to create learning units that are directly applicable to your trainees’ working lives. That way, they’ll see how what the training will have an impact on what they do and learning retention is far more likely. You can boost this and create active participants by getting learners to discover the usefulness of the concepts they are studying for themselves.

But how do you do this?

Once again, simulations are a good way to show how your learning objectives apply to the real world and allow learners to see the rewards – or consequences – of taking particular actions in a risk-free learning environment before applying their new skills for real.

7) Review, summarize and demonstrate

The last of our training retention tips again exploits the fact that active learning participants retain information longer and better. Design your learning modules so that they require your trainees to review and summarize what they have learned.

Encouraging critical thinking has been shown to increase learning retention rates over time, as it fosters an active learning mindset in learners, leading to greater engagement.

Add a review questionnaire at the end of learning modules alongside a quiz or test, or have group training and feedback sessions, where participants have to summarize and demonstrate what they have learned – after all, the best way to learn something is to teach it.