Continuing education in companies poses many challenges. In this article, we address the question of sustainability: How do we ensure the sustainability of learning interventions? How do we ensure that after a training session all participants do not return to their daily business and forget what they have learned? We present different approaches and show how chunkx supports you in increasing learning transfer and turning unique learning moments into sustainable learning experiences.
Factors for Successful Learning Transfer
Learning transfer stands for the ability to transfer a learned problem solution to another, comparable situation. Sustained learning transfer rarely occurs through a single learning activity. Three crucial factors contribute to successful learning transfer: emotional events, time, and repetition.
1. The Importance of Emotional Events for Learning Transfer
A sustainable transfer of learning is made possible by internalizing the content. Internalization takes place when learning events are not only run through rationally, but are experienced emotionally. Emotions can already be generated through intensive listening or the mental transfer of what is learned to one's own experiences — favored by so-called irritation experiences, which trigger specific emotions in participants.
Irritation experiences arise, for example, from the fact that everyday routines of action fail and a difference from one's own level of knowledge and understanding is experienced. Only out of this experience of difference do personal reasons for learning arise for the participant.
Irritation experiences can be stimulated by asking at the beginning of an event why participants have chosen the seminar, by posing self-reflective questions during or after the learning activity, or through role plays and exchange of experiences. When creating learning content in chunkx, our trained writers make sure to regularly incorporate reflective questions into microlearning units.
2. The Relationship Between Learning Time and Learning Transfer
The chances of achieving a sustainable impact are higher with a 5-day training than with a 1-hour workshop. Unfortunately, there is only a very limited amount of time available — the question is always how to achieve learning goals most efficiently.
Used responsibly, digital tools can help us use time more productively. Blended learning combines methods and media in the best possible way: content can be conveyed digitally in advance, allowing face-to-face training to be shorter and more focused. Our learning app chunkx supports this further through adaptive content selection — after each individual action, the content selection is readjusted to the user.
Freeing learning from the time constraints of a workshop or online training was a core focus in developing chunkx from the start. Everything we don't use right after a training fades faster than we'd like. It is therefore important to provide continuous moments of reflection distributed over a longer period of time — which is exactly what our microlearning approach enables.
3. The Importance of Repetition for Learning Transfer
In classical learning formats, repetition takes place at best only in the form of summaries. It is estimated that learning material has to be repeated about six times in order to store it in long-term memory — not to memorize it, but to consolidate what has been learned and have it ready for transfer in everyday working life.
In chunkx, we break down the outdated separation of learning and testing. Each microlearning unit contains a learning task that both interactively stimulates learning processes in the learner and helps our app determine what should be repeated. This not only creates an individualized and adaptive learning experience, but also provides optimal support for learning transfer.
Sustainability and a successful transfer of learning are crucial for the success of learning measures. Emotional events, time, and repetition are the three central levers — and chunkx addresses all three simultaneously.
With chunkx, we offer a tool to expand both new and existing measures in a targeted manner. Not a customer yet? Contact us for a personal presentation and let's improve learning in your organization together.
