We’ve all been there (or at least our learners have): We’re in the middle of a course and we’d like more information on a topic. Or, when reading an important document, procedure, or user manual, we’d like some quick instruction to see if we truly understand. Navigating between instruction and information seems simple enough, and with all the talk about L&D ecosystems, knowledge management, and performance support, you’d think it would be easy. However, sometimes these transitions morph into complex actions requiring programming, sophisticated software, and lots of money. If you lack the tools, resources, or time to make it happen, here’s a simple approach to get you started: Know more, learn more. It’s a simple and effective strategy to enhance eLearning design.
If you are building an eLearning course, you could put a link at the bottom of key pages that simply says know more. A click on that link would open a new window, taking the learner to curated content carefully selected to support that specific course material. In this way, you can point learners to reinforcing and enriching content without having to incorporate it into the course itself (making it easy to change and update.) And, you don’t have to overload your course with additional information that not everyone will need. Learners, at their option, can explore these materials and then return to the course.
Likewise, if you have information resources your workers are using on the job, you can add an occasional learn more link to key pages. That link would take them directly to specific microlearning for added practice, step-by-step presentations, or examples designed to provide quick learning reinforcement—if needed—that builds understanding and performance confidence. The microlearning components can be derived from already existing online courseware or developed uniquely for this purpose. An added advantage: you wouldn’t have to build these activities directly into your documentation.
Why do this? Because it’s a great way to link training with documentation in ways that give people more options for how they want to learn. And, if your learners are novices or otherwise not experienced enough to search for good content themselves, the curated list will be most welcome. From the instructional viewpoint, you can embed microlearning links in your documentation to take workers directly to relevant instruction, without requiring them to go through an entire course, parts of which might be redundant or irrelevant to them.
Of course, this requires diligence on your part to keep the content in the curated information list and microlearning modules fresh, relevant, and up-to-date, and to make sure the links work. Also, for continuous improvement, it would be a good idea to regularly survey users on their experiences and recommendations. Try this simple method to enhance eLearning design. While the terms know more and learn more are just examples of what you can use, the idea embedded in their use can be the beginning of a real effort to integrate information and instruction for the betterment of both.