For instructional designers, facilitators and teachers, a successful lesson is all about delivering an engaging learning experience, and there are numerous strategies they can implement to achieve this. 

Gamification is one such approach becoming increasingly popular in the workplace learning sector. The concept is exactly what it sounds like: the application of typical elements of game playing, such as point scoring or competition with others, to other areas of activity to encourage increased engagement. 

Engagement in learning is crucial. When new information is presented in an interesting, attention-grabbing way, this can be the difference between the learner being able to apply their new found knowledge, or forgetting it completely after completing the course.  

In this article, we are going to look at how gamification can be beneficial in the workplace and where it is embedded into the design of a typical online course. 

Does gamification improve learning outcomes?

While gamification undoubtedly makes the learning process more fun, employers want to know whether it impacts upon learning outcomes, and subsequently, outcomes for their organisation. 

In his Ted Talk entitled, ‘The Power of Gamification in Education’, teacher Scott Herbert explains that the early years curriculum in countries such as Canada, the UK and Australia is focused on play, fun and discovery-based learning, which is eliminated as students get older in favour worksheets, straight rows and regime. 

He argues that the majority of workplaces today are moving away from this highly ordered way of operating, and opting for ways to become more creative. By eliminating the preference for rote memorization of information and ‘gamifying’ the curriculum, he believes that creativity and innovation would flourish, and better prepare students for their careers.

Taking this into account, gamification of learning in the workplace could potentially help to unravel the structured ways of thinking fresh employees are leaving school with, and help them to rediscover their creative side at work. 

Research has also identified the gamification of workplaces as a promising strategy for promoting wellbeing, when levels of stress, a reduced sense of community, reduced loyalty and rapid changes in the workforce are all factors affecting organisations today. 

From an HR perspective, gamification enables teams to deliver feedback on learning in real time and monitor learners’ progress. It is an objective and fair system for measuring performance, and can make giving feedback a less emotionally-charged process.

Additionally, it can offer transparency on making progress at work. Each employee is offered a clear pathway to success and can autonomously manage which areas they need to develop in most.

How is workplace learning ‘gamified’?

As anybody familiar with gaming will know, games are often based on a narrative, with a protagonist leading the action. Learning can be structured in a similar way, with the participant moving through a series of scenarios to reach a desired outcome, making directional choices along the way. 

This narrative structure helps participants to stay engaged because people are highly attuned to storytelling. Engaged learners are far more likely to retain information and be able to apply it in the workplace. 

VR is now becoming an increasingly popular tool for workplace learning, particularly in the area of compliance. Go1 now offers a VR compliance package for the mining industry, in which learners can go on a virtual tour of a mine before even entering one. Each lesson looks very much like a game, in which the participant is learning about best practice for safety.

With online learning courses, modules can be structured in the same way as the different levels of a game. In order for participants to gain access to the next level of learning content, they need to complete the stage they are currently engaged with to a high enough standard. The ability to progress to the next level might take the form of a quiz or other demonstration of understanding.

Many online learning courses offer interactive tools to give participants a real-time learning experience. This often takes the form of interactive discussion with other learners, which can be built in to an LMS.  

This is similar to a game in that learners can work as part of a team to complete an activity or create something new. Discussions also make for a more dynamic learning experience, and help learners to move away from activities which fail to promote deep learning. 

The course might also set an activity which requires the learner to complete a task at work, or apply their new found knowledge. This extension of learning to practical situations helps to embed learning and put it into context.    

Points or badges can also motivate learners to stay engaged. Many apps (for both children and adults!) are designed in this way, giving participants recognition for the number of times they have completed an activity or engaged with content. This activates the reward centres in the brain and encourages participants to progress to the next stage to earn another reward.  

It is important to note that these are different to awards or credentials a learner might receive for completing a course. Points or badges are usually awarded during the learning process for completing parts of the content or successfully or demonstrating understanding.  

A one stop shop for all things training, Go1 makes it easy to compare the best training options available, and find the right resources for your professional development, compliance and business training needs. 

False

The benefits of gamification for workplace learning

Androgogic partners with Go1.com to offer 50,000 courses from 100 providers 

Australia’s frontrunner in EduTech infrastructure and service, Androgogic, has joined forces with Go1.com, the leading marketplace for online training and professional development. The partnership will offer the eLearning marketplace access to quality learning experiences, including an exclusive Freemium offering to Androgogic clients.

Recognised as the #1 Totara Partner in Asia Pacific, the joint venture saw Androgogic working alongside Totara Learning to implement rich content solutions to clients in the healthcare and government sector - all made accessible through the Go1 content library. 

With a Go1 subscription Totara and Androgogic clients are provided unlimited access to over 50,000 off-the-shelf courses, aggregated from over 100 content providers. 

As Totara’s premium partner, Androgogic will bring its strong network in healthcare and government industries to the Go1 platform. This essentially means Androgogic clients will get access to best of breed educational tools and content via one of the largest network content providers, directly from their Totara Learn instances. To top it off, Androgogic clients will enjoy an exclusive, freemium offering of 10 courses selected by Androgogic and an additional five of their choice. 

Thomas Wythe, CIO at Go1.com, said, “Go1 is excited to be working with Androgogic to provide a rich content solution to Androgogic’s healthcare and government customers. The Go1 content library – which is growing in size every quarter – gives this partnership and others like it the ability to respond quickly to industry needs and changing training requirements. We are excited to take this solution to market-based on the Go1 premium free tier offering in which customers will be able to experience real value out of the box.” 

Alexander Roche, Founder and Principal Education Technologist at Androgogic, said, “Androgogic is constantly striving to be the best and most comprehensive Educational Technology partner to our clients while continuously adding value. Today, our partnership with Go1 will mean our clients will have access to a wide range of learning content and the best breed of educational tools accessible from their existing Totara Learn instance.” 

The partnership between Androgogic and Go1 is set to enable the eLearning market to access the best of breed education, training, content and learning experiences.

Androgogic is a leading provider of Educational Technology infrastructure and services such as Learning Management Systems (LMSs). Androgogic has the expertise, team and technology to help you achieve your learning and business objectives. They work with clients to design and implement flexible, robust and reliable Learning Management Systems and other Educational Technology applications such as Virtual Classrooms, Social Learning systems, ePortfolio systems and Learning Content Management Systems. With cost-effective educational technology and services backed by industry-leading expertise and dedicated support. Androgogic have won the Totara Top Seller APAC Award 4 years in a row (2015-2018). 

Totara Learn is the leading open source, enterprise-level Learning Management Systems (LMS) with an extensive feature set designed for learning, training and talent development. 

Totara is transforming workplace learning with a powerful, flexible, and open platform that adapts to the unique needs of your business. Whether your needs are learning management (LMS), performance management, or employee engagement, Totara has it covered. 

Visit https://www.totaralearning.com to learn more 

Meet our distribution partner: Androgogic 

We are excited to announce that Go1 content is now LIVE in Docebo! 

Docebo Content, an all-new learning content solution available directly within the Docebo Learning Platform, is filled with a complete course catalogue full of off-the-shelf and mobile-ready e-learning courses, without the need for third-party integrations or licences. 

“With Docebo Content we wanted a partner with an international presence that isn’t just a content vendor, but one that provides solutions to content needs,” said Mirko Puliafto, Product Director at Docebo. “Go1 achieves this by aggregating top-notch content, across a range of topics, from the best providers around the world. The team at Go1 shares a number of core values with Docebo, including a commitment to innovation, particularly in the areas of Artificial Intelligence, to make enterprise learning experiences more engaging and memorable, and therefore more effective.”

“The partnership will help bring quality, impactful learning to a wider audience,” Go1 co-founder and COO Chris Eigeland said. “Go1’s library of high-quality courses on Docebo Content will enable a new level of autonomous learning in the flow of work by encouraging learners to browse and select courses for themselves at the push of a button and start learning immediately. Continuous, impactful learning benefits both companies and their staff, and is a key competitive advantage for any organization.”

Every free Docebo trial comes pre-loaded with 20 free courses hand-picked by industry to give administrators a feel of the potential Docebo Content can provide. Existing Docebo customers will also find 20 free courses pre-loaded into their existing platforms.

Docebo Content will be available in two plans to satisfy the needs of learning programs of all sizes.

Docebo Content 50 includes 50 tokens to allow administrators to personally select courses relevant and pertinent to their learners.

Docebo Content 700 provides complete access to the entire Docebo Content catalogue.

Selected courses can be seamlessly imported directly from the catalogue into the Central Repository (CLOR) as learning objects, or as courses directly into the Course Management area of the platform.

Learning administrators can provide full visibility to the entire catalogue enabling a new level of autonomous learning in the flow of work by encouraging learners to browse and select courses for themselves at the push of a button and start learning immediately.


Trusted by more than 1,600 companies in 68 countries, the Docebo Learning Platform brings together the enterprise LMS you need, the social learning experience your learners want, and the power of Artificial Intelligence to make learning your competitive advantage.


Go1 makes it easy for businesses to train their staff, with the world’s largest compliance, professional development and general training marketplace. By providing a single platform that extends from first aid training through to degree bearing courses, Go1 makes it easy to find and compare the best training options available. The marketplace features over 500,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts. Customers include SEEK.com.au, Oxford University, State and Local Governments and St John Ambulance.

Since launching in 2015, Go1 has grown to be a world leader in online learning and education. Local and overseas investors include Y Combinator, SEEK, M12, Tank Stream Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, and Our Innovation Fund.

For more insights, subscribe to the Go1 newsletter to stay on top of all the latest L&D trends. Or, you can book a demo today to find out how Go1 can help with your team’s learning needs.

Go1 and Docebo take learning to a wider audience - Go1

Go1 and Docebo team up to bring quality, impactful learning to a wider audience

Go1 is pleased to announce a content distribution agreement with eLearning technology experts Rustici Software.

Rustici Software customers will be able to access Go1's extensive content library of around 50,000 courses as part of Go1 Premium, which features courses from more than 100 of the world's top training providers, including Skillsoft, Thomson Reuters, and Wall Street Prep.



"We're excited to partner with Rustici Software as this relationship helps us expand our footprint in the fast-growing North American market," explains Go1 co-founder and CEO Andrew Barnes.

"Rustici is an established and well-known brand in the market, and our collaboration can only enhance both companies' standing among customers and potential clients," said Barnes.

Through this partnership, Go1 and Rustici Software have built an integration that enables any Rustici Engine backed LMS the ability to seamlessly discover, import and deliver content from the Go1 Premium library. The Go1/Rustici Engine connector will make it easier for the hundreds of Rustici Engine LMS customers to integrate the Go1 content catalog into their application with only minor development required.

"As part of the Rustici Engine 2019.1 release, we announced our new content connectors that allow our LMS and learning platform customers to integrate with third-party content libraries using a single API," said Rustici Software CEO TJ Seabrooks.

"I'm delighted to announce that Go1 will be our first content connector, making it easier for our Engine customers to incorporate the wide variety of content offered by Go1 into their applications. Through our collaboration with Go1, we are helping streamline the development work required to integrate Go1's vast content library with any Rustici Engine backed LMS," said Seabrooks.

Over 400 learning platforms and hundreds of organizations rely on Rustici Software for their eLearning technology needs.


Rustici Software helps companies in the eLearning space work well together. As the world's leading standards experts, they provide the tools and knowledge to help companies create, distribute, manage and play eLearning compliant content. Since 2002, Rustici has assisted hundreds of eLearning software vendors, organizations and government agencies conform to specifications like SCORM, the Experience API (xAPI), cmi5 and AICC. Rustici Software is part of Learning Technologies Group plc (LTG).

Go1.com makes it easy for businesses to train their staff, with the world's largest compliance, professional development, and general training marketplace. By providing a single platform that extends from first aid training through to degree bearing courses, Go1 makes it easy to find and compare the best training options available. The marketplace features over 500,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts.

Since launching in 2015, Go1.com has grown to be a world leader in online learning and education. Local and overseas investors include Y Combinator, SEEK, Microsoft, Tank Stream Ventures, Black Sheep Capital, and Our Innovation Fund. Go1 clients include ANZ Bank, Delta Air Lines, Hasbro, Suzuki, Thrifty and government agencies.

Learn more about the integration and get in touch with us today!

Go1/Rustici Engine connector will make it easier for the hundreds of Rustici Engine LMS customers to integrate the Go1 content.

Go1 and Rustici Software announce distribution partnership

Go1 is pleased to announce a partnership with SnapHire, New Zealand’s leading Applicant Tracking System. This partnership will see the two HR tech companies join forces to provide integrated learning and development solutions for SnapHire customers. 

SnapHire is a provider of cloud-based Applicant Tracking Software that helps organisations source, attract, recruit and onboard employees. They work alongside hundreds of Australasian organisations across multiple business sectors.

The partnership will bring Go1’s extensive eLearning library, to SnapHire customers to help them with their training needs including induction, compliance and professional development. Go1’s eLearning platform will complement SnapHire and enable the seamless flow of learning and development between the two platforms to create greater engagement for candidates and employees. 

SnapHire’s Head of Partnerships, Lisa Collins, is thrilled to announce the partnership with Go1, “we work with some of the most innovative organisations in Australasia and we are continuously seeing a drive to deliver an outstanding experience for candidates and employees.  Seamless integrations to quality product like Go1 add value to the HR team and create positive and memorable moments for candidates and new hires.”

Go1’s Lead Distribution Partner Manager, Simon Yeowart, was pleased to be partnering with New Zealand's best in class Applicant Tracking System. He said, “being able to offer SnapHire customers the opportunity to access Go1’s off-the-shelf eLearning library will be a major value-add for both businesses.” 

As Simon explained, "this collaboration will help support SnapHire clients in providing their employees with relevant eLearning to overcome complex challenges such as onboarding and compliance."

SnapHire is an award-winning, fully customisable Applicant Tracking System designed specifically for the corporate environment. SnapHire lets you attract, evaluate and hire the very best people for your organisation and can be configured to suit your organisation’s talent attraction and onboarding goals.  Don’t settle for anything less than the very best process and data insights to create a great experience for your candidates and your hiring managers.  SnapHire is the ATS of choice for discerning organisations that require a bit more muscle and superior customer service and support.

Go1.com makes it easy for businesses to train their staff, with the world’s largest compliance, professional development and general training marketplace. By providing a single platform that extends from first aid training through to degree-bearing courses, Go1 makes it easy to find and compare the best training options available. The marketplace features more than 500,000 courses and other learning items created by local and international experts. Customers include SEEK, Oxford University, state and local governments and St John Ambulance.

Since launching in 2015, Go1.com has grown to be a world leader in online learning and education. The company’s investors include Y Combinator, Shark Tank’s Steve Baxter, SEEK and Oxford University, enabling the startup to continue expanding its offices across the world.

SnapHire and Go1 now working together to bring workplace training to organisations across Australia and New Zealand  

In Australia, October is recognised as Mental Health Awareness Month - a month to raise awareness about mental health and shine a spotlight on what we can do to look after our mental health and reach out to those who need support.

At Go1, our objective is to highlight the importance of a mentally healthy workplace through learning.

We also believe that the more open we are about discussing mental health in the workplace, the more we can help to support one another, while also reducing stigma around it. 

The facts about mental health in the workplace

With concerns about mental health continually rising in Australia, it’s never been more important for organisations to know how to support their employees, while providing a positive work culture and environment for all staff.

The fact is, at any given time 1 in 5 Australian employees are likely to be experiencing a mental health condition. With so many people suffering in silence from the effects of anxiety, panic disorders, OCD, and depression – possibly even that person you sit next to every day who always seems ‘fine.’

It’s really important for managers to support any employee who appears to be struggling. And if you’re in a leadership role, you need to make sure that mental health is being considered as part of your organisation’s workplace wellbeing strategy.

Steps you can take to raise knowledge, awareness, and support

Many Australian organisations are eager to address employee mental wellbeing but don’t know where to start. 

Online training courses can be a very effective way to educate employees, managers, and employers on the importance of building mental health awareness within the workplace. While online courses can’t replace the guidance and expertise of a mental health professional, they can help employees of all levels to understand more about mental health in the workplace. 

eLearning can help individuals to establish new ways of thinking about and improving mental health, through proven techniques and strategies, while also recognising that they are not alone in dealing with these issues. 

Online training is also really important for employers and managers. Investing some time into more learning will help managers to feel more equipped and ready to help staff who may be experiencing the problems of low mental health. 

Keen to get involved in Mental Health Awareness Month?

To support Australian workplaces throughout Mental Health Awareness Month, we have curated five highly relevant and informative courses to educate and raise awareness. 

We encourage you to explore online training over the next month, completing the following courses - one each week - for the duration of October.

Mental Health Awareness (for Managers, for Employees)

We will bring you the first of these online training courses next week - stay tuned! 

If you have access to our content library, you will have full access to these courses. Reach out to your customer success manager for more information.

Please remember, if you are experiencing significant distress, you can reach out to Lifeline 131 114 or Beyond Blue 1300 224 636 for immediate support.

A recent article published in the Australian Financial Review reported that senior members of parliament are pushing for businesses to focus on workplace training. 

Federal Minister for Employment, Michaelia Cash, urged businesses to invest in workforce training in an effort to boost workplace productivity.  

"The reality is that business investment in workplace training has been going in the wrong direction for some time," Senator Cash said.

"Business needs to play its part. Workforce planning is not simply a problem for government, and the solution will lie with industry as well.”

Despite the proven benefits of investment in learning, work-related training has dropped from 26.9 per cent in 2013 to 21.5 per cent in 2016-17.

"That’s stark evidence and a call for employers to invest more in the skills development of their employees to make their businesses more sustainable.  A trained workforce brings greater productivity returns and better wages," Senator Cash said.

Each state, along with the Commonwealth Government, acknowledges that investment in training is essential to ensure the economic benefits are spread across the whole country.

Prime Minister backs skills training focus

Scott Morrison also encouraged businesses to improve skills training programs, and stressed that he is not prepared to continue investing in failing programs. 

"We know the current system is not working and a lot of people come to us saying you need to invest more in skills – well I would be happy to invest more in skills but I am not going to invest in dud projects that aren't working." he said.

"There are lots of trainers who are happy. There is lots of money moving around. But the point is you need to get someone trained with a skill that someone else needs. 

"I am not going to pour more money into a bottomless pit that is not taking anyone anywhere and I think industry would have the same view."

Recently, the Office of the Chief Economist published data making a link between the amount of investment in skills training and the overall performance of a business.

Senator Cash said employers need to predict which skills their workforce will need in the future and to invest in the appropriate pathways. 

Online learning is an efficient and cost-effective way to deliver workplace training, and there is a proven return on investment. 

42 percent of companies in America believe that by utilising eLearning initiatives, they’ve been able to increase their revenue.

Opportunities for ongoing learning and growth are also important for employees to feel invested in the organisation they work for.  

Senator Cash highlighted that replacing a team member costs employers an average of $28,000, and that one of the main reasons workers moved on was to seek more opportunities to develop skills. 

A one stop shop for all things training, Go1 makes it easy to compare the best training options available, and find the right resources for your professional development, compliance and business training needs. 

With Go1 Premium, you’ll have unlimited access to a growing library containing thousands of learning resources, from top training providers around the world - all in one easy subscription. 

Canberra pushes organisations to invest in workplace training 

Picture this situation.  You decide to enrol in a new course and feel excited to be learning about a topic you have been interested in for a while. 

You arrive at the first hour-long session, and the teacher begins by talking for thirty minutes.  The other half hour is divided into reading and answering questions independently. 

While the teacher is highly knowledgeable and experienced in her field, she isn’t well acquainted with pedagogy - the method and practice of teaching as an academic subject. 

The lesson she taught was perfectly acceptable as an introductory class to a new course, yet you would have left the room having very limited new knowledge or understanding.

With online learning, the structure, composition and delivery of sessions is equally important.  So, in what ways can online learning be structured to be both more effective and engaging? 

One methodology widely accepted as making a learning experience more worthwhile is Bloom's Taxonomy.

In this article, we are going to explore the thinking behind the methodology and look into how you can apply this in your role as a learning and development professional or participant in workplace learning. 

Bloom's Taxonomy is a concept that has been in favour in pedagogical research since the 1950s, and it is as relevant today as it was then.  The theory is used in classrooms and online learning courses across the world. 

Developed by educational psychologist Benjamin Bloom and his team, the taxonomy was a significant contribution to the classification of learning objectives and to the theory of mastery learning. 

Essentially, the taxonomy can be best described as a learning ladder.  In order for a learner to reach the higher-order thinking skills, they need to take the steps on the ladder in the correct order.  

A well-designed lesson will include tasks starting with lower-order thinking skills to build knowledge, and move gradually towards the higher-order thinking skills.

The following diagram shows the ranking of different thinking skills in the taxonomy, with remembering being a lower-order thinking skill and creating a higher-order thinking skill.  In order to create something new, you need to have completed some or all of the other learning steps first to get there:

How knowledge of Bloom's Taxonomy can help you

Whether you are a learning and development professional or employee engaging in online learning, knowing which course types or activities to focus on to make the most out of learning time is hugely important.

It is also helpful to remember that learning tasks in the upper sections of Bloom's Taxonomy will be far more engaging because participants will be required to use a broader range of thinking skills, meaning more brainpower and focus is required.

In a work context, employees will often have to use their knowledge to create, analyse or evaluate to add value.  If they are trained in how to develop these skills in workplace courses, the learning will be all the more applicable in the real world. 

The following tips will help you to navigate choosing an online course, or set of courses, that encourage learners to engage in deeper thinking:

Before selecting a course, review the activity types

When you explore the Go1 library, each course comes with a detailed description of the types of activity learners can expect to engage with when they begin. 

Whether a course includes reading, watching instructional videos or project-based activities, you will know before you enrol.  You can also enquire before you sign up to find out more from the helpful Go1 team.

Activities associated with higher-order thinking include: designing, building, constructing, producing, inventing, judging and critiquing.

Practical stories help to put learning in context, and are particularly important for workplace training.  One of the main goals of staff training is for participants to be able to apply their knowledge in a practical context.  Acknowledging this during the learning process makes the transition from online to real-life scenarios much easier.  

If you know that a course includes practical scenarios, the course content will be more likely to engage learners in higher-order thinking.  For example, learners might need to evaluate or analyse when considering how to respond or react in a given scenario.

Stories also give learners a familiar context to work with.  They form a great basis for gaining new knowledge and information, as learners can make connections between new information and situations they already understand. 

With Go1 Premium, you’ll have unlimited access to a growing library containing thousands of learning resources, from top training providers around the world - all in one easy subscription.  

Using Bloom's Taxonomy to choose engaging content

Introducing our newest feature (drumroll please): learning recommendations. 

With the new tailored content suggestions, Go1 is bringing personalisation to the forefront of the learning journey by taking steps to capture and understand individual learning interests. The updates have been in early access for a few months - thank you to those who have been early adopters of the feature!

Portals which enable the Suggested Courses for you option in Portal Settings will see a new block on their dashboard with five recommended learning items. Users can also personalise these recommendations by selecting topics they are interested in learning more about. There is a new block at the bottom of the dashboard, prompting users to select their topics.

If a user has previously added topics of interest on their portal, the topics will carry over with this update and appear in a list at the bottom of their dashboard.

Topics can be updated using the Update Settings button. 

All users will now see a new tab under their Account Settings called Recommendations. Here users can add/update their topics of interest.

If you’re interested in getting the most out of the personalised learning feature, read our guides to get started:

How to enable the content recommendations email on your portal (for Administrator)

How to choose your topics of interest (for Learners)


New learning recommendations to help keep your users engaged!

Shipping soon - updates to personalised learning recommendations!

Unfortunately, for many employees, workplace learning ends up being another task tagged on the end of an ever-growing to-do list. 

Yet, Deloitte’s 2017 ‘Global Human Capital Trends’ report found 42 per cent of millennials are likely to leave their organisations because they’re not learning fast enough. 

The data also reveals that among millennials, the “ability to learn and progress” is now a key element in their perception of a company’s brand.

While opportunities for workplace learning are highly valued, time is a significantly limiting factor.  

When the average employee has only 24 minutes per week to learn, it is crucial to understand how to maximise that time and ensure that learning is useful.

In this article, we will be exploring how participants can make the most of their online learning experience in the time available. 

The following five tips are our suggestions for maximising the time you allocate to online learning.  Whether you are a participant or learning and development professional, they may be useful to share with your colleagues and help to develop the learning culture in your organisation: 

1. Understand where your strengths and weaknesses lie

If you know exactly which aspects of your role you are good at and which need some work, you can use the limited time you have for learning in a targeted way.  

For example, if you know you need to develop your communication skills, but you are confident in the hard skills required for your role, communication should be the focus of your learning time.

Avoid completing tasks and lessons you already understand for the sake of it, and communicate this to those responsible for learning and development in your organisation.

Sometimes flexibility in workplace training is limited, and every staff member has to take the same course.  If this is the case, when you are given the opportunity to provide feedback, you can explain that it would be better if the learning was personalised.

2. Develop a growth mindset for learning 

The term “growth mindset” was coined by Professor of Psychology at Stanford University, Carol Dweck.

She argues that an individual’s views of their ability can be placed on a continuum, from those with a “fixed mindset” to those with a “growth mindset”.  

In an interview in 2012, she describes the difference between the two states of mind in the following way: 

“In a fixed mindset students believe their basic abilities, their intelligence, their talents, are just fixed traits. They have a certain amount and that's that, and then their goal becomes to look smart all the time and never look dumb. In a growth mindset students understand that their talents and abilities can be developed through effort, good teaching and persistence. They don't necessarily think everyone's the same or anyone can be Einstein, but they believe everyone can get smarter if they work at it.”

Being able to learn independently is a crucial skill for any employee (or adult!) to have, but it isn’t always easy.  Sometimes we expect those in positions of responsibility to have all the answers, when we could easily do a little extra research and find out for ourselves. This will save time emailing back and forth or waiting for answers to questions you could easily Google.

On the flipside of this, there will be situations when a new concept just isn’t clicking for you, and you need to ask somebody for help.  

A great prompt used in schools to encourage independent thought is ‘brain, book, buddy, boss’ when students are looking for answers to a question.

If you have exhausted all the other options available to you, asking a colleague, a facilitator or your boss is a perfectly viable next step.  More often than not, you will find the answer before needing to ask your boss and you can both happily continue getting on with the other tasks you have planned for the day. 

You can either work on learning goals by yourself, with a line manager or in collaboration with a colleague responsible for learning and development in your organisation.

When thinking about what your learning goals are, your most recent performance review is a good place to start.  Learning and development goals may already be included in your review, but, if not, think about which specific areas of your role you really need to pay more attention to. 

This information, as well as understanding your general strengths and weaknesses, will help you to form a clear picture of the direction your learning needs to take.

Five ways to make the most of an online learning course

Helping you reach your training goals with the latest insights, trends, and advancements in L&D