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Overview
An increasing penetration of smartphones and the Internet in people's daily lives has surely relegated static online courses to the books of history. Trending technologies including Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have drastically changed how people consume content.
Folks today are no longer willing to grasp content with just video lectures and text-based content formats; they wish to experience some best practices, and here, the interactive training concept comes into the picture. Fortunately, developing an online training module is more manageable due to wide access to online tools.
Indeed, the term "training module" has created a lot of buzz in the corporate training sector, but organizations, as well as employees, are skeptical about its usage and might not have realized the significance of building training modules.
Do you ever ponder the creation of a training course or tutorial? If properly taught, learning a new skill or technology can be pleasurable. A well-written training program and an experienced instructor go a long way.
Anyone who owns a business will tell you how crucial it is to determine training objectives. Your personnel will be more productive if you properly train them. They generate more, increasing your sales and profits as your costs decrease due to improved efficiency.
Your employees will comply more with internal and external requirements if you train your personnel. They may become generally happier and more content with their work performance, increasing their interest in the task. Because of the decreased turnover, you can pay less for hiring and onboarding new employees.
Therefore, building an exciting and efficient training module is crucial in a company's learning and development (L&D) toolbox. Now, let's look at the different elements that help you create a better training module while ensuring learners make the most out of their training program. So, here we go.
So, What is a Training Module?
In simple terms, a training module can be defined as a structured section of various e-learning courses. The content within a training module should be organized, designed, and created to smooth the learner's journey and retention of the engaging content it consists of.
Grouping training units creates step-by-step learning. In order to achieve their training objectives, students move progressively through a course, completing each module as one section of a larger topic. It's a strategy for improving the digestibility of training delivered using a learning management system.
There are a variety of reasons behind developing online training modules. Some organizations want to provide employees with better growth opportunities, others want to improve customer relationships, and others are actively looking to reduce training costs.
Additionally, you can utilize them to set your business apart from rivals or boost the marketability of your employees. You can use a myriad of learning modules to teach different topics to your customers, employees, or business partners.
For example, one module can be designed for your sales teams, the other can be developed for new hires, and the other one might be dedicated to management persons.
A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating a Training Module from Scratch
You may have heard the popular proverb, "Tell me and I will forget, teach me and I may remember, but involve me and I learn." Yes, this proverb suits the best in creating training modules.
Developing a training module from zero is like building a bridge - all you need is a robust foundation. If we talk about the world of instructional design, this process consists of shaping knowledge into an interesting and informative learning experience.
From defining clear objectives to making a blueprint- all facets should be designed in such a way that guides you in the right direction. Adhere to some instructional design principles to craft amazing training modules. It's like adding beautiful architecture to your bridge, making it not just operational but also eye-pleasing.
Now that you are aware of how crucial it is to build engaging training materials, let's explore how to develop engaging training materials for your staff training initiatives.
1. Define the Problem
To start, identify the issue you want to solve. Do you believe, for instance, that your employees require better sales training? Or does your IT staff need to adopt cutting-edge tech stacks?
The secret to excellent training is communication. Learn more about the problem and how it affects work performance to solve a business challenge. Asking detailed, probing, open-ended questions is one of the first tasks required for creating online training modules. A few examples include:
- What is the type of issue that has to be solved?
- What kind of knowledge or abilities are needed to close this gap?
- How well-versed on this issue are your employees in terms of performance?
- How much or how well do you think your team members ought to know about this subject?
By providing answers to these queries, you will be better able to comprehend the business situation at hand and move forward by intended performance goals.
2. Course length
When it comes to creating a training module, deciding the right course length is very important. For instance, think of it like choosing the perfect meal. Too little, your targeted audience might stay hungry, too much, they might get overwhelmed. So, all we need to do is find a sweet spot in course length.
Therefore, determine the course length that keeps learners engaged and allow them to grasp the content effectively.
3. Know Your Target Audience
Before actually working on training modules, knowing your audience is essential. Let's understand this with an example rather than a theory. The module for a full-stack developer would be utterly different from that for a graphic designer.
Understanding your target audience helps you structure different elements correctly in your training modules. Once you get to know about the target audience, you can develop engaging training modules.
Knowing when and where your audience will finish their training also helps you decide how many modules and how lengthy a course should be. Create a shorter learning task with many modules so your students can nip in and out if they are learning on the fly or between chores. A longer course with more in-depth lessons will be most effective if they work at a desk.
4. Use Simple Language
Writing your training materials at a 7th or 8th-grade reading level is best. Avoid extensive and complicated words. The best writers of training materials understand that the objective is to enlighten rather than to impress.
Of course, you should also be aware of when to utilize jargon. Your audience will comprehend those phrases more readily if they are exposed to a particular level of technical jargon instead of simpler (or oversimplified) terms.
5. Plan Out the Type of Content
After selecting your objectives, choosing the training modules you should provide for your audience is crucial. It might result from both their interests and the accessibility of your resources.
There are many types of content. You can also take a reference from a well-known training module sample created before, but here we have listed a few examples of content to take into account:
Learning Block
Imagine, you are supposed to create online training modules, then a “learning block” special feature enables you to piece together various parts of your entire course, just like arranging your favorite toys. It's as simple as drag-and-drop- feature. Customize your entire content seamlessly and experience how your course makes the game easy for learners.
Text-based Information
This type of content, which can be delivered as articles, eBooks, PDF files, or slides, is excellent for explaining thoroughly.
Visual Content
Images, diagrams, infographics, charts, and graphs can help people understand complex information with ease.
Videos
Especially when teaching practical skills or complex concepts, videos help concepts come to life and are ideal for demonstrations, lectures, or interviews.
Audio content
For individuals who prefer to study by listening, podcasts, audio lectures, or tutorials provide an alternative.
Case Studies
Studies provide insightful context and demonstrate to students how ideas may be applied to practical situations.
Discussion Forums
This can help students better comprehend concepts by allowing them to interact, ask questions, and exchange ideas.
Scenario-based Learning
In scenario-based Learning, students must choose how the scenarios will play out. Each situation will change as they select answers from the different available possibilities. To completely replicate a genuine dialogue, you can even design dialogue branching situations, including voice-overs for character speech.
If you are looking for all these options at an affordable cost, try EdisonOS today and see how your training modules take shape with ease.
6. Choose the Right Tool to Build Impactful Training Modules
You'll need the best tools available when it's time to transform your concepts for a top-notch training module into reality. After all, your training modules are an investment in the success of your business, so you should strive to produce more than simply a straightforward PowerPoint presentation!
For this reason, we suggest EdisonOS, the finest authoring tool, which comes with all the tools you want to design, distribute, and manage impactful training modules. Let's examine some of EdisonOS's best tools in more detail:
Flexible course builder
Combine different types of content, from videos to interactive learning and assessments, to create bespoke modules.
Live classes
Make it easy for teams to attend classes with real-time interaction.
API Integration
Connect your favorite tool and applications to EdisonOS, and observe how seamlessly it simplifies your workflow and boosts productivity.
Email Marketing
Communicating with your audience with in-built email marketing features, makes it simple to create, send and track marketing campaigns with ease.
Real-time Reporting
Gain important insights into learner’s performance and module’s effectiveness using comprehensive and real-time reporting features.
Glossary
Get to know the meaning of all important terms, documents and resources under the one roof.
Website builder
Get started with the drag-and-drop customization functionality and build your online presence that offers businesses fruitful outcomes.
Gamification
Motivate your learners and promote healthy competition with gamified elements and quizzes.
7. Divide The Training Program Into Several Sections
Now that you are familiar with the employees and their goals for the course. It's time to consider how you want to structure your training modules. Break up your online course into various sections to aid learners in understanding and memory retention. Each training module contributes to:
Reduce cognitive load: By breaking up the information into smaller modules, learners can more easily retain tiny amounts of knowledge at a time.
Better learning experiences for students: Small modules have condensed content that makes employees feel more comfortable learning on their own.
Let's understand this with an example.
For instance, you are designing an onboarding course. So, you need to divide the course into three major modules: About the company, Company culture, and the Overview of the team members.
- About the Company: It is very important for new hires to know how the company works and why they have been hired.
- Company culture: Before diving into the more difficult parts of onboarding, get your new workers situated. You can include instances of how the business promotes its culture and fundamental values in this module, along with details about any social groups it may have.
- Overview of their teams: Explain the team's role and include a brief bio for each member.
8. Test the Training Module
It is crucial to test your module before incorporating it into the official business employee training software. Pilot testing provides critical information and lets you assess whether your staff will gain from the training and fulfill learning objectives.
Select a test audience comprised of a select group of your company's employees. Ensure that this audience needs to gain more prior knowledge of the trained subject to achieve the greatest results. Choose employees with less experience in your field so they may complete the module without preconceived notions about how it should be taught.
Examine the evaluation results to find the areas that still need improvement if the test audience doesn't perform as predicted after the module is finished. Work together with your stakeholders and subject matter experts to identify solutions that can fill these gaps, as doing so can significantly improve the corporate employee training experience.
9. Run Experimental Projects After Revision
Send the initial draft of the training manual to stakeholders and subject matter experts for review after completion. Finish this stage in no more than three revisions to avoid creating an infinite feedback cycle.
Any new training should then be put through a pilot test before being made widely available. Work with a small group of audience members who are unfamiliar with the training topic for the greatest results.
10. Build the Final Version and Publish
After the assessment, you will know what needs to be fixed and whatnot. The final step consists of creating training modules and publishing them. Once you launch your training modules, it's time to evaluate the learners' performance.
Tracking data is pivotal as it lets management know whether the overall course helps you achieve learning objectives.
Why Should Organizations Create Online Training Modules?
There are many benefits to using training module formats for each stakeholder involved.
- The first factor is that your employees or team members swiftly grasp and remember e-learning content from training modules.
- Each employee will remember more of what they have learned in their training courses and do their jobs more effectively if training module formats are used.
- Utilizing training module formats will help your business maintain uniformity throughout all of its locations worldwide. It is significantly simpler for management to manage many departments across numerous locations worldwide when everyone uses training module formats and won't face any issues of changing learning styles.
- Another advantage of employing a training module style is that you won't have to train new managers on every facet of managing their departments when they join your organization.
- Instead, these new employees may trust that if something has always been done a certain way, there isn't necessarily a reason to change it today.
- The speed with which word can get out about whether or not your business knows how to use training module formats is a final justification for doing so.
To Sum Up
Researching, training, and development is never a ONE-TIME process.
In addition to these ongoing changes in strategies and market trends, it's important to maintain your training modules. Making your training module templates appealing and pertinent for your audience and brand is crucial for a successful training program.
eLearning modules are a fantastic method to scale up the delivery of instruction on practically any subject. As a result, businesses, training institutions, and trainers increasingly depend on this effective, affordable, and accessible digital format to train staff members, clients, and business partners.
In 2023, firms will prioritize measuring the effects of training programs, increasing learner usage of training programs, and improving training effectiveness. They are devoting most of their efforts to learning management systems and e-learning authoring tools to accomplish these aims. As a result, more and more brands will likely see an even greater uptake of training modules and other e-learning techniques in the coming years.
An effective tutorial can improve the learning process whether you are taking a course in a traditional classroom environment or from the comfort of your home. Therefore, use your imagination to develop the first training module with EdisonOS.
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