5 Tips to Improve Your eLearning Courses
Have you ever completed an eLearning course and wondered what it was about when you finished? Believe it or not, the eLearning course may not have been the primary problem. It could have been how it was designed. At a high level, most learners process information through either hearing, seeing, or both.
The way you present and deliver content affects most learners. Having too much information on a screen can affect retention. Hence the reason you may finish an eLearning course and not fully absorb the content. This is because the human brain can process a finite amount of information in its working memory. It is essential only to include information relevant to the learning goal you hope to achieve.
Here are five multimedia design principles eLearning course developers can follow:
Show and Tell
Learning is more effective when information is presented as words and pictures than from words alone. Be sure you don’t overdo on-screen text, though. This leads us to the second consideration.
Spacing
Related text and pictures/animations should be placed close to each other. Imagine an image at the top of your screen, but the associated text is on the bottom of the screen at the opposite end. That could be disruptive and add extra noise.
Timing
Present any narration and images at the same time rather than successively. Think about how a tutorial shows you where to access a link on a webpage, but the narration is 3 seconds behind. You want to ensure both narration and associated images show simultaneously.
Relevance
Avoid including unneeded narration, sounds, images, or video. Imagine a course intended to help you learn the parts of an automobile, but it includes images of a bright sun and flowers. Do those extra images add to or detract from your learning?
Interactions
Learners should have control over their learning experience. This means you can add clicking interactions at a basic level. You can develop simulations, branching scenarios, or even blended learning elements.
Personable
Narration should be conversational. Although it is common to hear academics speak, our brains tend to respond better to more natural-sounding narration. This doesn’t mean that academically written content is a bad thing. It just means to be mindful of how your script aligns with your content and audience needs.
There you have it. Five simple yet, effective ways to improve your eLearning courses. Remember, online learning doesn’t have to be dry. It just needs a little more structuring.
Sources
Mayer, R. E. (2002). Cognitive Theory and the Design of Multimedia Instruction: An Example of the Two‐Way Street Between Cognition and Instruction. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, 2002(89), 55-71
Mayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia instruction. American Psychologist, 63(8), 760–769.
Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia Learning (Vol. 2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.