Any content, whether online or face-to-face needs to consider adult learning principles in order to be effective. Adult learning principles include the following:
-
Adults bring extensive life and work experience to their learning. Your content should respect and build upon this life experience.
-
Adults have a goal and purpose for taking training. Your content should closely link to these goals and be highly practical and relevant to their needs.
-
Adult are practical and typically learn by doing. Your content should engage adults in active learning.
-
Because adults are choosing (usually!) to take training, they are highly motivated. Your content should build on and respect this motivation.
-
Adults are adults and want to be treated as such. Content and activities should be specifically designed for adults not based on content and activities for children and youth.
As well, research has shown that being able to interact with content helps learning happen and improves retention of learning, and technology certainly offers many creative options for incorporating interaction in your online training.
