Artificial Intelligence is the Key to Helping Your Workforce Learn More Effectively. Embrace it.
Picture this. You’re in your car, ready to leave for vacation. You enter your destination into the GPS expecting to receive an overview of your fastest route. Instead, your GPS launches into step-by-step directions on how to drive. It walks you through where to find the ignition, how to shift gears, and what pedals you need to push in order to accelerate and stop. Just for added measure, the GPS tell you about the invention of the automobile and how it transformed transportation forever. That would be ridiculous, right?
Unfortunately, this is akin to what you’re doing to your workforce when you make them sit through overwrought, prescribed, sequenced training workshops and e-learning modules. Frequently, what they really need is useful, just-in-time information. Furthermore, this information should be selected and based on their current skill level and geared toward empowering them to better meet the specific objectives of their jobs.
Your employees deserve more than what professional learning has given them up to this point. Heck, we all do. It’s time for professional learning to embrace the power of adaptive learning, fueled by artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the desire to do better by their learners.
Here’s why it’s time for a change — and what you can do right away to prepare for a better learning paradigm.
The Power of AI-Infused Adaptive Learning
Learning isn’t linear, and it certainly isn’t one-size-fits-all. However, Learning Management Systems (LMSs) have historically taken learners from Point A to Z via a straight, logical, brutally comprehensive path. Does the employee already know the material? Too bad. Everyone sits through the same tutorial and is given the same quiz to show they’ve met the same course requirements. There will be no shortcuts, thank you very much.
Adaptive learning welcomes smart shortcuts to speed up your workforce’s ability to impact your organization's bottom line. It allows you to deliver relevant training in less time, all while achieving better learning outcomes.
AI algorithms for learning technology platforms:
Offer up job-specific content recommendations and inform personalized learning pathways.
Analyze data such as content consumption patterns and assessment scores to identify related courses or content that might benefit the learner.
Factor in external influences such as popularity, content similarity, and newness to point users toward additional nuggets of information and keep them engaged.
The result? A customized, accelerated learning experience tailored to each learner’s individual needs.
You are an essential part of the AI equation. After all, AI might prompt learners to check out a particular piece of content, but there needs to be a smart, capable human who is creating and curating the content that matters to your particular workforce.
Before you can offer adaptive learning, you’ll need to adapt, too. This means changing the types of content you create and how that content is structured so you can give learners what they need when they need it.
Adaptive Learning Offers the Right Content at the Right Time
Dr. Conrad Gottfredson and Bob Mosher pioneered the concept of the The 5 Moments of Need®. I'm a big fan of this and have been for years. This powerful model works well when applied to the "What's in it for me?" part of the equation for learners. Their work shows that to succeed as an L&D specialist, you should be laser-focused on giving employees what they need when...
...it’s time to learn something new.
...they need to learn more.
...it’s time to apply what they’ve learned.
...something has changed.
...there’s a problem to solve.
Traditional Learning Management Systems do a decent job of helping employees in the first two moments of need. They help employees learn something new, and they certainly help them learn more (probably more than they ever want to learn, quite frankly).
However, does your LMS offer fact sheets in the flow of work to empower your workforce to apply what they’ve learned? Does it alert workers there’s been a change to a process that impacts how they perform their tasks? If your employees have a problem when out in the field or away from their desks, can they easily find the answers to help them solve that problem?
It’s time to answer yes to these questions. Meeting employees in their moment of need makes your workforce more skilled, competent, and capable. Adaptive learning is the way to achieve that.
7 Adaptive Learning Tips to Help You Get Started
These seven tips will help you let go of old, prescriptive content development methods in favor of agile, mobile-first, user-friendly techniques.
Talk to your employees and their supervisors about what they need to be successful. Take time to understand where they get tripped up, where there are performance gaps, where they need help, and what types of content are most useful for them.
Create pre-tests or other prerequisite criteria to assess where learners are and allow them to skip over learning they’ve already mastered. Use the data from the learners to inform your content creation team where understanding gaps may lie so you can improve for next time.
Chunk up your content to make it more accessible. For example, rather than burying the steps of a particular process on slide 32 of a comprehensive learning module, pull that highly useful information out and allow it to stand alone. Lather, rinse, repeat with every bit of helpful content you can find.
Make wise use of search functionality. You can create the most relevant content in the world, but if your learners can’t find it when they need it, what’s the point? Use keywords and tagging to boost search functionality. Treat your content design approach with the understanding that people will be searching for this information, not just mindlessly clicking "Next" buttons.
Use data analytics and user feedback to fill in content gaps and assess if there are common places where users are failing to comprehend information. These might become fulcrum points you can use to force a learner to pass a test or demonstrate proficiency before they can move on. Make those smile sheets and likert scales useful for once, please.
Offer learners the ability to bookmark and annotate content that is useful for them so they can easily find it again and re-visit it when they need it. Use the data you gather on what content is bookmarked and highlighted to create more content like it and use the information to help weight the algorithms so that the content shows up more often for learners with shared characteristics.
Create unique learning pathways to allow learners to progress through the information in a way that is meaningful and relevant to their particular needs. Leverage tags and taxonomies to create relationships and browsability to encourage the "learn more" moment of need.
Learning Experience Platforms Harness the Power of AI to Help You Reach Your Business Goals
Hopefully, we’ve convinced you that adaptive learning is more than just a buzzword. It has realizable business value — but in order to make the most of all the advantages adaptive learning offers, you’ll need the right technology to bring it to life. Rolling out a Learning Experience Platform (LXP) might be the next crucial step to make use of AI, transform your learning curriculum, and reach the business objectives you’re after.
A good LXP:
Is mobile-first to support learners wherever they may be.
Makes content authoring a snap.
Employs human-centered UX.
Naturally supports macro-adaptive learning to shorten learning time.
Supports configurable learning pathways.
Gives quick insight into analytics that inform good decision-making processes.
It’s time to evolve your learning and development mindset and make use of the dynamic technologies available to you. Doing so will enable you to meet your employees in their moments of need and thoroughly equip them to serve your organization well — now and in the future.
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