Learning Boosts
(LURN-een BOO-sts)
LIQUID
What is a Learning Boost?
Learning boosts are a learning program strategy in which learners are sent short pieces of information, activities, or quiz questions to boost retention of a particular topic or subject.
Other Common Names
Other common names for learning boosts include:
- Refreshers
- Nudges
Key Properties of Learning Boosts
- Small amounts of information, content, or questions sent to learners after a learning experience
- Require learners to recall and retrieve information
- Help the learned content in the learner’s short-term memory (helps fight the Forgetting Curve!)
- Focus exclusively on content already covered
Resources From The Train Like a Champion Blog
Insights that Flow Freely through What's Your Formula
- "No matter how important your content, how creative your design, or how engaging your delivery, people will forget things. They’ll forget important things. Unless they get a little nudge."
- "Perhaps you’ve watched a gameshow or you’ve been playing a knowledge- based game like Trivial Pursuit and you hear a question and you think to yourself: “Once upon a time I knew the answer to that . . . it’s on the tip of my tongue . . . give me a minute . . . meh, I don’t remember . . . what’s the answer?” Then you hear the answer and you swear you’ll never forget it again as long as you live."
- "No matter how self-motivated your participants are, ultimately it is their supervisor who can hold them accountable, encourage them to follow through on their goals, or (in the absence of goals) can encourage them to focus their attention elsewhere. For a training program to be effective, you’ll want to find ways to avoid that last scenario. Identifying potential strategies by which you can help supervisors set goals with their direct reports as well as make them aware of the goals participants craft for themselves can make the difference between an interesting training program and an effective training program."
Elements that bond with Learning Boosts
Instructional Design
Learning boosts can’t be an afterthought or something trendy to stick at the end of a course on a whim. Careful planning about what would be most valuable to reinforce, as well as how and when to reinforce it are key considerations that need to be baked into your course design.
Email
People expect to get work-related emails and, like text tools, there are a variety of email-based tools you can use to automatically distribute short videos, bursts of information, job aids, polls, or quizzes to help remind your participants about the most important aspects of your course.
Spaced Learning
Learning boosts aren’t simply something to send out after a training program has concluded. Multipart learning experiences—whether asynchronous online courses or multiday or multiweek in-person training programs—can integrate short quizzes and boost previous learning before moving on to new content.
Text Tools
People typically leave text messages unopened much less frequently than they leave emails unopened. In that sense, text messaging can be a very effective way to communicate with participants following a course. There are a variety of tools on the market to help set up short, text-based quizzes or information nuggets that are sent automatically at a cadence that works for your program.
Follow-up
This can take the form of supervisor support or messaging from you to your participants after a course has been completed. Instead of allowing a certificate of completion to be the final thing your participants experience, sending periodic communications (and quizzes) or providing collateral for participants to use with their supervisors can assist in boosting post-course retention.
Follow-upOther Sources of Information on Learning Boosts
Books Related to the Topic of Learning Boosts
