How to remember what you’ve learned online

As most of the world closed down last spring, the poten­tial for dig­i­tal learn­ing opened up. After all, with lock­down restric­tions keep­ing class­rooms emp­ty, going online was the only way for many peo­ple to study. LinkedIn, for instance, report­ed that pro­fes­sion­als around the globe spent a com­bined 49 mil­lion hours on its cours­es alone dur­ing the 12 months to July 2021 – a year-on-year increase of 50%.

Ellen Buchan is insight exec­u­tive at the Asso­ci­a­tion of MBAs and Busi­ness Grad­u­ates Asso­ci­a­tion, which recent­ly con­duct­ed an inter­na­tion­al sur­vey of 171 busi­ness school lead­ers. 

“The shift to dig­i­tal teach­ing looks set to stay,” she pre­dicts. “All but 16% of our respon­dents are plan­ning to retain the new tech­nolo­gies they’ve adopt­ed dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, while 82% expect to make fur­ther invest­ments in online tuition. Their moti­va­tions include want­i­ng to be ahead of the mar­ket, as well as prepar­ing stu­dents for the dig­i­tal work­place.” 

These find­ings are under­stand­able, giv­en how online learn­ing has proved its worth dur­ing the Covid cri­sis. But, while it clear­ly pro­vides more flex­i­bil­i­ty than con­ven­tion­al alter­na­tives are able to offer, learn­ers can find it hard­er to retain infor­ma­tion con­veyed through their com­put­er screens. So how can pro­fes­sion­als increase their chances of suc­cess?

To start with, that very same flex­i­bil­i­ty could actu­al­ly oblige learn­ers to take a more dis­ci­plined approach to their stud­ies, accord­ing to Matt Stan­field-Jen­ner, direc­tor of learn­ing at dig­i­tal edu­ca­tion plat­form Future­Learn. 

“Estab­lish­ing goals, behav­iour­al stan­dards and oth­er good habits is impor­tant for any suc­cess­ful learn­ing exer­cise, but espe­cial­ly online,” he says. “This is because its any­time, any­where for­mat oblig­es you to man­age your own agen­da. It forces you to be more respon­si­ble.”

Next, a con­ducive learn­ing envi­ron­ment is cru­cial for help­ing learn­ers to main­tain their con­cen­tra­tion. Bian­ca Miller-Cole, co-author of the new­ly pub­lished entre­pre­neurs’ guide The Busi­ness Sur­vival Kit, stress­es the impor­tance of free­ing your­self from all dis­trac­tions. 

“That means switch­ing off your phone, ignor­ing your emails and tru­ly set­ting time aside to con­cen­trate on learn­ing,” she advis­es. “Treat the con­tent – whether it’s live or record­ed – as if you were in a room with a teacher, focused on their les­son.”

Shar­ing what we learn with oth­ers can help us to retain infor­ma­tion too, notes Gwe­nan West, head of peo­ple at soft­ware provider CIPHR. 

“You’re much more like­ly to remem­ber some­thing if you have to explain it to some­one else,” she says. “If you’re learn­ing online as part of a group, cre­ate a vir­tu­al com­mu­ni­ty. Use this forum to dis­cuss course con­tent with your fel­low stu­dents. This will not only help you with fact reten­tion; it will also enable you to ascer­tain oth­er people’s under­stand­ings of the mate­r­i­al, which may dif­fer from your own.”

The rel­e­vance of the course mate­r­i­al is clear­ly also key to suc­cess­ful knowl­edge reten­tion, as it gives learn­ers a bet­ter chance to put their knowl­edge into prac­tice. The more applic­a­ble the infor­ma­tion, the more like­ly they are to be able to under­stand how it will ben­e­fit their work and career prospects.

Rachel Heron is head of peo­ple trans­for­ma­tion at BT Secu­ri­ty, which offers employ­ees a range of dig­i­tal learn­ing tools, includ­ing Plu­ral­sight, Immer­sive Labs and Cen­tri­cal. She says that “keep­ing the train­ing rel­e­vant is one of the most impor­tant things for our team. The dig­i­tal plat­forms we use offer bench­mark­ing and sug­ges­tions for improve­ment. Peo­ple can see exact­ly what they need to learn if they want to progress. They also have a clear view of how cer­tain skills can be trans­fer­able if they’re seek­ing to change roles.”

For a more futur­is­tic approach to improv­ing infor­ma­tion reten­tion, con­sid­er learn­ing in vir­tu­al or aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (VR and AR), sug­gests Dr Alex Young, founder and CEO of immer­sive train­ing com­pa­ny Vir­ti.

“VR and AR are per­fect­ly suit­ed to help devel­op the skills required for infre­quent sce­nar­ios and high-risk envi­ron­ments – think oil-rig engi­neer­ing, brain surgery and emer­gency respons­es,” he says. “Research has shown that humans learn best by delib­er­ate, repet­i­tive prac­tice that’s easy to access and fun to engage with. Stu­dents who train on immer­sive tech plat­forms not only devel­op more refined skills but also hold on to their knowl­edge for longer.”

So how can busi­ness lead­ers be con­fi­dent that any invest­ment they make in employ­ee devel­op­ment is actu­al­ly worth it? The first step is to decide in advance how you plan to gauge the val­ue of your employ­ees’ edu­ca­tion­al endeav­ours.

“If it’s rel­e­vant, look at key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors before and after the learn­ing activ­i­ty,” West sug­gests. “If you sus­pect that peo­ple aren’t retain­ing what they’ve been taught, men­tor and coach them. Give them time to go through what they’ve learnt and pro­vide a plat­form or project that will enable them to prac­tise their new skills.”

Skill reten­tion assess­ments can also be built into immer­sive plat­forms, with arti­fi­cial intel­li­gence sys­tems able to gath­er per­for­mance data gleaned from mul­ti­ple-choice quizzes or prac­ti­cal exer­cis­es, Young says. 

“Each user’s progress can then be mon­i­tored over a peri­od to gauge their knowl­edge reten­tion and pin­point areas for fur­ther devel­op­ment,” he explains.

BT Secu­ri­ty offers men­tor­ing class­es, using an in-house train­ing team and sub­ject experts to help “embed the learn­ing and close any iden­ti­fied gaps”, Heron says. “The sup­port­ed learn­ing cohorts ensure that our peo­ple have the best pos­si­ble chance of pass­ing their exams.”

Stan­field-Jen­ner agrees, stress­ing that man­age­r­i­al engage­ment is cru­cial. “Gone are the days of send­ing peo­ple away on train­ing days. Instead, col­leagues can pick up any­thing from 10-minute micro-learn­ing through to deep­er learn­ing on a 100-hour cre­den­tial. But they all require some lev­el of sup­port, advo­ca­cy and inte­gra­tion,” he says. “A big part of that is to build learn­ing into people’s every­day work­ing lives. By set­ting pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment goals that stretch employ­ees and embed­ding learn­ing with­in that frame­work, you can be sure that you’re help­ing peo­ple to learn in the knowl­edge that they have your full back­ing.”

Ulti­mate­ly, he adds, inte­gra­tion is essen­tial wher­ev­er pos­si­ble. It gives employ­ees the chance to apply what they’ve learnt with­in the strat­e­gy of the busi­ness. 

Stan­field-Jen­ner con­cludes that real ben­e­fits can accrue only if the learn­er has had the chance to apply their new knowl­edge and skills. “This allows them to demon­strate a change in behav­iour, chal­lenge exist­ing prac­tices and show that tan­gi­ble, valu­able results have result­ed from their apti­tude for learn­ing.”