As a business owner, I consider the quality of our training the biggest shortcoming. Well, if I think about my children or job applicants, the first thing that comes to mind is also the quality of education, or rather its absence.

At school we learn that what we're learning is useless, boring, that we won't be able to recall it anyway, and besides, "what are we ever going to use this for"?

Mostly nothing.

This week the Learning Technologies conference is taking place in London, admittedly only online, but if it weren't for this virus thing, I would certainly have gone in person as well, as I did last year.

It's a completely new environment for me, one where you feel that people want to teach you something and are seeking the best method for doing so, and moreover, you can even profit from the time and energy you invest. And all of it is for you, the one who wants to learn, not for the one teaching.

The director and project manager of a company called Saffron Interactive, Noorie Sazen and Jessica Anderson, see the following 5-step process as the most effective method, one where the learner's motivation is paired with the highest benefit:

1. Test your audience

The first and most important thing you need to start with is sparking curiosity. If the learner understands that what they're about to hear will help their development, their work, anything at all, and that you can provide help with this, then their appetite for what you have to say will follow.

Ask questions that highlight gaps in their knowledge and tell them what they will get answers to.

2. Create a supportive environment

The digital environment is a perfect choice for tailoring knowledge transfer to the learner's needs. The learner has the freedom to choose their own path to reach their goal, to review materials again or skip them, while interactivity is also supported by numerous questionnaires, tests, and tasks.

Beyond the technical conditions, fine-tuning the training material is very important, and completed courses and feedback surveys provide very good feedback for this. What prior knowledge is needed to get started, how complex or extensive should the material be? How difficult or boring was it? With this feedback in hand, we can then make the knowledge transfer even more supportive.

3. Be present

It's very hard to find the right balance in knowledge transfer. From the instructor's point of view, it's obviously most convenient to produce the training material and the accompanying tests and consider the topic closed on their part.

The best approach, however, is to let the learner set off on a journey of discovery, while not leaving them alone in the dark. Let your learner know that you are always present, always available, that you support them, and that you answer their questions as quickly as possible.

4. Let them create

Try to build a learning group around the training material whose members are able and willing to communicate with each other. At the same time, incorporating, understanding, and applying what has been learned can best happen in practice, so there's nothing better than having learners solve a task in groups, or jointly create something using the knowledge they've just acquired.

However, it's up to you to provide the necessary conditions, environment, and starting point for this.

5. From passive listener to active instructor

In the learning process, turn the passive consumer of knowledge into an active participant who, through completing tasks, also contributes in practice to developing the content and the method. Create the time and place for reacting and giving feedback, both toward you and toward themselves. Everyone only gains from this. It will very quickly become clear what needs more emphasis and what needs less.

Give them the opportunity to add to the training material themselves, to create questions, explanations, and tasks.

If you do things right, your training material will come alive, and both the learner and the instructor will become increasingly motivated.