The Ultimate Cheat Sheet for Adult Learning

As we move through the day, we are continually bombarded with information from advertisements, news stories, or daily gossip from friends or coworkers.  As a result, it becomes more and more difficult to absorb and retain information.  This makes the job of trainers increasingly difficult, especially when conducting group training.

In “Training Takes Time,” a post on the SmartBlog on Leadership website, the author explains that although adults can sit through and listen to a presentation for 90 minutes, they will only remember 20 minutes’ worth of information from it.  Therefore, trainers should break up their presentation every 8 minutes with some type of interactive activity to help trainees better retain the presented materials.

One of the best and most effective ways for a trainer to engage participants and boost retention to improve adult learning is through the use of audience response technology.  Audience response systems boost the effectiveness of training programs by allowing presenters to target the specific tools and topics that participants need while validating their understanding of the materials.  They can also be used as effective corporate training tools.

Here are a few ways that you can boost attentiveness and retention in your training program:

1. Pose an interactive question every 8 to 12 minutes in your instructional presentation.  Participants will pay closer attention and will be interested to see how their responses fit with those contributed by peers.

2. Pose an interactive question after teaching a major concept.  Immediately display the results.  Foster discussion about the wrong answer choices to help promote better understanding.

3. Use Audience Polling as a method of analyzing and comparing learning results.  If a significant number of participants have failed to master a concept, provide another example of the concept and teach it a second time.  Poll the group a second time and do a pre-post comparison of learning results.  Discuss the results.

4. Schedule a class review session.  Use the interactive system to provide participants an opportunity to indicate which topics are of specific interest to them.  Allocate review time accordingly.

5. Use the interactive system to quiz participants.  Afterwards, provide scored printed results back to participants showing each question and the correct answer so they can direct their individual review efforts toward those learning points that require more work.

Electronic polling devices provide trainers with the ability to obtain real-time feedback so that they can adjust their presentations to the needs of the audience or change the way they are presenting the information.  That adaptability saves time and money and improves the training’s effectiveness.

Harold Horowitz conducted pioneering research at the IBM Learning Center, where he served as program director of Educational Technology.  He found that using an audience response system in training programs increased attentiveness and retention.  Improved attentiveness translated into a 27% improvement in test scores.  Use of interactive keypads fostered increased participation and improved the amount of material covered during each class session by 15%.

Often, however, we find that audience response technology is being underutilized.  People don’t learn all its capabilities or don’t invest enough time to maximize the impact of using the technology to contribute to an organization’s bottom line.  If you would like to learn more about audience response technology, simply click the button below.