The Short Attention Span Learner

With all that we know about today’s learner I still experience training that must have been designed in the 1950’s.  Trainers droning on and on believing that class participants are hanging on their every word.  Hanging maybe, but not on their every word certainly.

I think of the bloated content that I used to deliver years ago and think of how hard I was making it for students to absorb and retain what I was teaching.  Today we add multimedia to the bloated script and call it interactive, well maybe, but I think overload is overload no matter how it’s delivered.

As trainers we need to know that our students need to do something, apply something, create something, or discuss something about every 5 minutes during a session. I’m a big fan of 5 minute Instructional Design.  Chunk your information down to its essence then give it to the class in small digestible chunks.  Create an activity for the students after every chunk and let them apply the learning.  I know that seems like a lot of work for the instructional designer but I’ve seen it work, time and time again.