How SkillBuilder® LMS Engages Your Learners

Engaged learners are successful learners. SkillBuilder^® LMS has the features you need to engage your audience, keeping them on topic, on task and on track to learn what you're teaching.

We have talked about ways to engage learners in Stop Boring Your Learners! In this article, we'll look at how you can leverage SkillBuilder^® LMS to make the most of what we suggested there.

We outlined four engagement-boosting strategies:

1. Blended Learning
2. Games and Competition
3. Discussions and Knowledge Sharing
4. Practical Exercises

SkillBuilder^® LMS can play a key role in implementing each of these strategies in your learning program.

1. Blended Learning

While we've often written about the advantages of eLearning, there are also strengths to workshops, seminars and other forms of instructor-led training. At the most basic level, they all involve gathering a group of learners to learn together: an ideal environment for social and collaborative learning, where observation and imitation, discussion and teamwork form the foundation of the learning experience.

Classroom settings also offer opportunity for:

• Group discussions
• Review of student-presented scenarios
• Competitive and cooperative class games

So if face-to-face learning and eLearning both have potential, which should you use?  The good news is that you don't have to choose! In "Building Effective Blended Learning Programs," author Harvey Singh defined blended learning, in its optimal state, as combining "multiple delivery media...designed to complement each other and promote learning and application-learned behavior." Blended learning gives you the best of both worlds; each task and concept is taught through the most appropriate media and integrated to form your learning program.

How SkillBuilder^® LMS Helps

If your dream instructional design scenario involves blended learning, SkillBuilder^® LMS is onboard to manage it. Its comprehensive range of learning items includes seminars and webinars. SkillBuilder^® LMS manages scheduling, registration, attendance records and any grading records you might need. If you've opted for a webinar, you can also upload pre-recorded webinars, schedule live ones and offer recordings for ongoing access.

2. Games and Competition

I'm sure you've heard of gamification and game-based learning, but let's take a minute to look at what they are.

Gamification means using game mechanics like scoring, awards and leaderboards in non-game scenarios. It's a powerful motivator that has been found to improve "work experience for 91% of employees."

Game-based learning (GBL) "is a type of game play that has defined learning outcomes; it immerses the learner in a training experience that feels like a game and teaches real-life skills in a risk-free setting."

How SkillBuilder^® LMS Helps

SkillBuilder^® LMS has a suite of features designed for gamification. These include:

• Open Badges: These are "verifiable, portable digital badges with embedded metadata about skills and achievements". You can learn more about these badges and their benefits in "6 Benefits of Incorporating Open Badges into your LMS".

Consider awarding Open Badges to your learners for major accomplishments. As well as recognizing the learner's accomplishments, the badges can be displayed elsewhere, confirming the learner's progress and, incidentally, promoting your brand wherever they go.

• Point Scoring: SkillBuilder^® LMS learners can be awarded points for completing learning items or acing assessments. Points are both a recognition of accomplishment and an impetus for competition. Who on the team can score the highest? Which team can collect the most points?
• Leaderboards: Let's face it, bragging rights are an excellent motivator. SkillBuilder^® LMS leaderboards display top point scorers, giving the top individuals those bragging rights and everyone else something to shoot for.

• Tiers: Another metric in learner progress, especially when it comes to training, is the proportion of assigned learning each learner has completed. SkillBuilder^® LMS offers six tiers: Copper, Bronze, Silver, Gold, Platinum and Diamond. The percentage of completed training required to reach each tier is custom set by each organization.

If you're more interested in learning through games than gamifying the learning experience, SkillBuilder^® LMS has you covered. SkillBuilder^® LMS delivers game-containing courses developed in the standard formats SCORM and xAPI. If you prefer to host a game externally, it can be included as a URL learning item or an external qualification.

3. Discussions and Knowledge Sharing

Earlier, we covered the advantages of discussions, collaborations and social learning in classroom settings. These features don't have to stay in the classroom. With the right technology, you can bring them and their benefits into the online realm.

How SkillBuilder^® LMS Helps

SkillBuilder^® LMS has forums where learners can communicate, commiserate and collaborate as part of their eLearning program without ever leaving the LMS.

4. Practical Exercises

Asking learners to do a task, not just read about it, can be an effective way to keep them interested and engaged. And if it's a physical task they're learning, practice is an essential part of the learning process.

How SkillBuilder^® LMS Helps

Many of the strategies Russell mentioned in Stop Boring Your Learners can be adopted in any eLearning course. Additionally, SkillBuilder^® LMS offers a Practical Evaluation learning item for situations where successful learners must demonstrate a physical skill. The evaluation itself is conducted through on-job observations. Evaluators usually follow a skill check document to assess the learner to a specific standard. The completed, signed skill check can then be uploaded to SkillBuilder^® LMS where it takes its place with the rest of the learner's learning records.

Conclusion

In this article, I've reviewed how SkillBuilder^® LMS can help you implement blended learning, games and competition, discussions and knowledge sharing and practical exercises. Can SkillBuilder^® LMS help you engage your learners? Consider signing up for a trial run today to find out!