Ask your employees to close their eyes and recollect an online training program they enjoyed.

They might visualize an instructor talking over a presentation, or an interactive self-paced course that was short and engaging.

Now, ask them to picture their most memorable, engaging part of a particular online training program.

They may think of an engaging video.

Or a piece of audio material - like a customer phone call being analyzed.

Or they might recollect a highly engaging group activity.

What do these detailed experiences employees so fondly recollect tell us?

Employees learn through a combination of styles, but they resonate and engage more with certain (preferred) learning styles.

A good training program should embrace all learning styles.

Let us define the learning styles and see how to match them in your eLearning programs.

Types of learning styles

Learning styles	What it means	Examples
Visual	They prefer strong visual cues in learning.	Pictures, images, and videos.
Aural	They respond best to facilitated sessions.	Recorded lectures and analysis.
Verbal	They prefer structured, text-based cues to learn.	Transcripts, eBooks, and Whitepapers.
Physical	They lean on their senses and need an experiential mode to learn.	Roleplays, product demos, and product installations.
Logical	They prefer to learn through reasoning and logic.	Games, quizzes, sorting activities, and simulations.
Social	They prefer to learn in groups or with other people.	Group activities and discussion boards.
Solitary	They prefer to use self-reflection via self-guided learning.	Self-paced programs or microlearning courses.

How to match these learning styles in your eLearning programs?

Start with the training type: Allow the training type to dictate the primary and secondary training styles.

For example - the primary style for a Call Etiquette training program can be a self-learning course (Solitary style). The program can also include a few secondary learning styles such as:

• documents to read (Verbal and Solitary styles),
• analysis of customer calls (Visual or Aural style),
• and quizzes (Logical style).

The refresher training program can consist of styles that were not part of the main course - like virtual mock calls with a group of colleagues (Social style).

Provide a mix of learning styles: Courses with a mix of learning styles cater to the primary or preferred styles of some employees, while the secondary styles reinforce the training.

Transform your training to microlearning: Microlearning involves stripping down a skill or idea to its most essential parts - and only teaching those.

Microlearning courses are highly focused and made up of byte-sized exercises.

These byte-sized courses range from 3 to 10 minutes - but no more than 20 minutes.

You can match each micro-course to different learning styles that lead to better engagement and knowledge retention.

Of course the goal is not to create training programs to match every learning style, but ones your employees engage with and retain information in a much better manner.

For example - a micro-course on Call Etiquettes can be in the video format - where an instructor analyzes customer calls that resulted in bad CSAT scores.

The following course can contain reading material (presentation) about '10 questions to avoid asking irate customers calling about a new product.'

When training programs are broken into micro-courses, you need to define a learning path for employees to navigate through the series of courses.

A well defined learning path where courses are categorised into - 'Learn', 'Try' and 'Test' for example - gives control to your employees, control to choose their preferred learning style and a starting point.

Is there an ideal online learning system that allows you to address each learning style?

Addressing different learning styles becomes expensive if you outsource content creation to a vendor.

If you choose to create content in-house, your training team tasked to accomplish this mighty task will need help.

How can a small team create training content to address a variety of learning styles?

Nittio Learn LMS, an all-round training tool is all you need to address all your training demands.

This LMS is built to help small training teams churn out interactive training content in various formats - in a matter of hours.

To see if Nittio Learn is the right fit for your training demands, visit - www.nittiolearn.com