What’s the best way to fight the forgetting curve? By reinforcing training, that’s how!
Repetition is effective, but it can be tedious.
Luckily, Growth Engineering have developed a range of techniques to make training reinforcement enjoyable!
What is The Forgetting Curve?
There’s plenty of research to suggest we forget a lot of what we learn. German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus studied the nature of memory loss. From 1880-1885, Ebbinghaus attempted to memorise nonsense syllables.
Ebbinghaus found a distinct link between time and memory loss. He put his findings into a graph called The Forgetting Curve. Amongst many other things, the Forgetting Curve showed us the following:
- On average, we forget 50% of what we learn within a day
- On average, we forget 90% of what we’ve learned within a month
The Spacing Effect
Spaced learning reinforces training over regular intervals. Reinforcing the material helps in the fight against the forgetting curve as the content is repeatedly retaught. This means that what you teach your learners is more likely to stick!
A typically spaced learning timeline may look like this:
1: The content is taught
2: One week break
3: The content is reinforced
4: Two week break
5: The content is reinforced
6: One month break
7: The content is reinforced
5 Ways to Reinforce Training
Reinforcing training is clearly essential if you want it to stick in your learner’s brains. But the last thing you want is bored learners who keep receiving the same training. This is why we’ve put together a list of five different ways you can reinforce your training.
1. Microlearning
Microlearning is learning in small blocks. Any learning that takes between 3-5 minutes can be described as microlearning. They’re quick to produce and they’re also cost-effective. The swift nature of microlearning means that content can be personalised to fit around the learner’s life. In other words, microlearning is learner-centric.
How Can Microunits Reinforce Training?
Quick, short training refreshers are the perfect way to reinforce your training. You can remind learners of the essentials in a short-sharp session.
2. Quizzes
Question: What are the three things in life that people universally love?
Answer: Chocolate, David Attenborough and quizzes
On The Knowledge Arcade, Admins (or content curators) can build quizzes to seek out any knowledge gaps that colleagues may have.
How Can Quizzes Reinforce Training?
By viewing the cycle of repeated questions, the correct answers will eventually register with the learner. Admins can also write in-depth responses for when a learner gets the question wrong. Detailing the reasoning of correct answers will hopefully help to reinforce the training too. It’s a win-win, even if you lose!
3. Social Learning
We capture Social learning on our mobile learning solution, The Knowledge Arcade, with features such as clubs. The aim of a club is to house a social feed where colleges can discuss certain topics.
Categorising discussions saves time when learners need help. Clubs can be created for different departments such as marketing and sales. They can also be used for more casual things such as company socials.
How Can Clubs Reinforce Training?
Most clubs are created for the purpose of strengthening learning. Admins can create clubs for whatever purpose they want. Why not form a leadership development club for those who just completed leadership training?
Clubs are a fantastically social way of reinforcing training, as well as getting to know your colleagues. Clubs are continual, so they will keep building knowledge for as long as the club exists.
4. Battles
How competitive are you? 50% of workers benefit from competition in the workplace.
We tap into this craving of one-upmanship with Battles. This competitive feature pits colleges against each other by turning training into an engaging quiz-off. Admins can write questions in the form of multiple choice, true or false and much more.
How Can Battles Reinforce Training?
Battles are a great way to reinforce training as they make us competitive.
By introducing Battles, you’ll find that learners will give themselves training refreshers to ensure they know their content.
Additionally, the more Battles, the more they’ll encounter the same questions. The more they encounter the same questions, the more chance the training will be reinforced.
5. Push Notifications
As you’re no doubt aware, push notifications are usually associated with mobile learning apps, such as The Knowledge Arcade.
How Can Push Notifications Reinforce Training?
Admins can consider assessment answers and access levels before pushing suitable content to learners via push notifications. Admins are therefore able to tailor what training to reinforce.
Alternatively, learners can pull any content they want from the library. This way, if they feel the need to reinforce their knowledge on a module, they can. The value of this cannot be measured. It’s like having an eternal source of knowledge in your pocket.
Final Word
Each of these are a sure-fire way to reinforce your training. Individually, these are powerful tools for helping reinforce training. But deliver all five together, and you’ll have a learning campaign which is sure to reinforce your learners understanding.
For instance, imagine you’re sending out some microunits on leadership training. On the first day they learn the initial training. The next day they have a quiz about what they’ve learned. Then next week they have access to a Battle.
You can then release a club based on the leadership training for colleagues to discuss what they’ve learned. Admins may also want to send push notifications to remind learners about what they’ve learned.
