Enablement, Trends & Insights
What makes a great lesson?
By Rachel Saltsgaver — On January 22, 2020
Apple founder Steve Jobs once said, "Great things in business are never done by one person. They're done by a team of people." We agree—the best work happens when it's a team effort, and training is no exception. That's why we're committed to partnering with our customers to create industry-leading learning programs.
Here at Lessonly, we have plenty of practice building lessons and helping customers create their own. So, we'd like to share with you some of the insights we've learned along the way to make training engaging, interactive, and impactful for your employees.
Engage learners with simple content
Tip 1: The first question most lesson creators ask is, "What should I include in my lesson?" Start by zeroing in on one idea or job function at a time. Since you can't teach employees everything at once, focus on three sub-ideas or responsibilities, and build the lesson around that framework. Jumpstart this process with our employee training plan builder and tap into the expertise of your team members to identify important job tasks.
Tip 2: When building a lesson, it's crucial to capture and deliver work knowledge simply —this increases the effectiveness of the lesson. This is when the classic acronym K.I.S.S —keep it simple, stupid —is useful. Be sure the lesson includes only the most important information in a concise and to-the-point manner so employees can clearly understand it.
Tip 3: To keep lessons interesting, look for ways to break up text with engaging elements such as images and video. This is an easy way to add context to the lesson or explain something in more detail. For example, we love using screen capture to show employees how to follow a specific process, such as adding a lead in Salesforce. Just remember to keep video content relevant and brief so employees stay engaged.
Tip 4: The most effective lessons are designed to be short and easy to complete. The "microlearning" format breaks training down into bite-sized pieces that educate employees on a single subject —increasing learning engagement. If you need to share a lot of information related to one subject, consider breaking lessons down into more manageable chunks within a learning path so employees can easily digest the information.
