Forget Me Not Blog Posts

Background

AnglicareSA has a highly skilled dedicated workforce capable of delivering exceptional quality care to consumers living with dementia. In 2020, AnglicareSA delivered two dementia care online learning modules as part of its annual continuing professional development program for aged care staff.

Sharyn Osborn
Executive General Manager People and Culture.

Little and often using Forget Me Not microlearning app

To help employees continuously build their dementia care skills AnglicareSA worked alongside Obvious Choice to innovate with a ‘little and often’ learning delivery approach. Over an 8-week window, employees were nudged with 5-minute dementia care scenarios. This provided Carers extra practice responding to virtual consumers who were displaying signs of delusion, agitation, aggression or at risk of wandering.

Employees got enormous value from a few minutes of learning each shift and reflected “the small bursts of training were a real time saver” and the repeated practice attempts built their confidence. The ‘little and often’ approach trialed at AnglicareSA is backed by neuroscience and HR research by Josh Bersin on optimal training delivery techniques for the modern worker.

Trial it now

Easy and Convenient

All staff found learning via the Forget Me Not microlearning app easy and straightforward.

Rather than roster employees off to attend classroom training sessions or retake the 30-minute online learning modules, AnglicareSA encouraged employees to find 5 minutes during their shift to learn on their mobile phone.

Personalisation

The microlearning experience was designed to meet employees where they’re at in their journey to dementia care competence. When employees struggled with virtual consumer scenarios, rich adaptive feedback helped bridge knowledge gaps. Retrieval practice, a neuroscience process that provides employees with multiple opportunities to practice how to respond and deliver safe, quality care to dementia consumers, led to increased employee confidence.

Employees who demonstrated competence the first time they encountered a scenario were stretched with a variant scenario a few days later. In this way, each employee’s journey to dementia care knowledge mastery was personalised. Some Aged Care staff were able to master the scenarios in a couple of weeks whilst others took a little longer. Personalisation meant people who needed more practice were able to move at a pace that matched their current competence. This adaptive learning is not possible with traditional online learning modules.

Actionable insights to impact

>By upskilling employees with microlearning and innovating with learning analytics, AnglicareSA were able to provide more coaching opportunities for frontline Carers on dementia care.>

Obvious Choice Managing Director James Stacksaid the transformation to a microlearning app with powerful analytics makes it easier for aged care providers to continuously develop staff and quickly close knowledge gaps.

"A key business benefit of using the Forget Me Not microlearning app is getting analytics on what staff know and don’t know about dementia care. Unlike Forget Me Not, traditional online learning doesn't show us what staff originally knew or didn't know or how they mastered dementia care knowledge over time." he said.

"This analytics provides insights for senior clinicians and Residential Managers to provide extra coaching and mentoring to staff who need more support."

WHERE TO NEXT?

On the back of the Dementia Care microlearning campaign, AnglicareSA plan to rollout cultural safety training using Forget Me Not. Frontline staff think the Forget Me Not App "would be super good for nearly any clinical scenario or a range of other skills too."

Trial Forget Me Not for free!

Send your details below and we will be in touch to provide your microlearning access.

With company culture being a key factor in employee retention, employers are increasingly mindful of implementing practices and policies that reflect company values. An unsupportive or toxic culture leads to disengaged employees, unhappy customers and high employee turnover. Bad workplace culture will push the best people away.

Microlearning starts to build a company culture of excellence. Companies that help employees build good habits of continuous learning outperform competitors, innovate faster and respond better to changing market conditions. Implementing a microlearning content strategy is an effective way to boost knowledge retention and fit learning into the flow of work. 

Here are five reasons why you need to consider microlearning in your learning and development strategy.

1. Microlearning makes employees feel valued and appreciated

2. Microlearning shows your company is innovative

3. Microlearning creates a learning culture

4. Microlearning builds employee confidence

5. Microlearning builds inclusive cultures

1. Microlearning makes employees feel valued and appreciated

Microlearning reduces interruption in an already busy workday. It allows employees to set preferences and learn at a time and place that is most convenient for them — rather than take them away from work for traditional classroom learning or online learning.  

Microlearning shows an employer respects and values their employee's time and professional growth. Any company that values its employees will see this reciprocated.

2. Microlearning shows your company is innovative

Implementing microlearning in the form of a mobile app shows a company is progressive and committed to the adoption of digital trends.

It shows an understanding of how digital content is consumed in today's fast paced world. Microlearning also recognises that bite-size learning is the best solution for employees, especially those on the frontline who don't have access to a PC or laptop. 

Applying microlearning in your company shows a commitment to values such as innovation, learning and customer service. Using microlearning for induction training as an example immediately highlights these values. What a great way to set your company apart by providing innovative induction training versus painful orientation workshops with bad catering or long winded eLearning modules.  

3. Microlearning creates a learning culture

The frequency of microlearning helps employees build up a little and often habit to continuous skill development. Employees can be incentivised upon completion in the form of mastery which can go towards a reward and recognition scheme.

Employees can be encouraged to share their results and learning, which fosters a culture of transparency and increases your employee's sense of alignment with your company — and ultimately increases employee engagement.

4. Microlearning builds employee confidence

On Forget Me Not, feedback is immediate, encouraging and conversational, which makes employees feel appreciated and celebrate small moments of continuous development. 

Instead of waiting to receive feedback in a one-on-one meeting or in an annual performance appraisal, microlearning gives employees a real sense of progress by providing multiple opportunities for feedback.

Success and reward happens often and quickly, improving employee confidence and their self worth in a company.

5. Microlearning builds inclusive cultures

Research from Deloitte shows inclusive work cultures are six times more innovative. They’re also two times more likely to meet or exceed financial targets. The reason for this is because inclusive culture values create a workplace environment for employees to bring their whole selves to work.

Companies need to recognise that inclusion is not a stand-alone initiative or compliance training but an ongoing part of creating a culture. So, how do you shift the mindset from compliance to culture? Through the use of a microlearning strategy to achieve this goal. 

For example, consider how introducing inclusion-friendly microlearning content on unconscious bias might help to facilitate self-awareness, or how lessons on responding to different generations in the workplace could improve communication between employees and teams.

Greater employee collaboration and peer learning can be encouraged by practising new skills and engaging with peers and test learning in a real environment to measure impact.

Want to see how you can apply microlearning?

Microlearning can help you build on a company culture of excellence. It provides the glue for a robust performance-based culture by reflecting innovative and progressive company values where employees are valued and a learning culture fostered.

You can learn more about how you can use a microlearning strategy into your employees' day-to-day. Get in touch Forget Me Not for a free demo to see how easy it is to embed knowledge into your company.

Picture this: you invest thousands of dollars in staff training and development. You hope what staff learn is retained and applied. But how do you know if the content sticks? And can you really rely on an eLearning quiz to measure retention?

This blog explores:

1. Why knowledge retention is a competitive advantage

2. Making knowledge stick

3. Three techniques to improve knowledge retention

Why knowledge retention is A Competitive Advantage

Knowledge retention isn’t just some L&D buzzword. It is a critical competitive advantage when employees have the know how to do their job to an exceptional standard of performance. When staff retain critical knowledge, job tasks and behaviours are second nature — which is really the true goal of any learning and development.

Benefits of knowledge retention

The most obvious benefit is that improved retention means enhanced on the job performance. Other benefits include:

• Higher employee engagement

  It helps build job satisfaction and career progression. Higher employee engagement means less employee turnover because people have the critical job role knowledge to perform confidently and competently at work.

• Happy customers

  Knowledge retention also means happier customers because your people have a deeper understanding of how your products or services work to make customers' lives better.

• Saves time

  Knowledge retention saves managers time handling issues and complaints because staff understand their roles inside and out. They can confidently solve problems and are empowered to make decisions. For example, how to deescalate an angry customer, empathise with customers, quickly troubleshoot, and resolve customer issues.

Making Knowledge Stick

Knowledge retention is the ability to transfer know how from one’s head to different situations at work. Us humans are forgetting machines. We are not wired to retain knowledge after just reading or learning something once. Committing new knowledge to memory requires repetition and retrieval practice. Practice activities create neural pathways in the brain supporting us to continuously retrieve newly acquired knowledge.

If you really want to measure knowledge retention, follow these 3 steps:

1. Start by designing multiple practice activities around relevant and realistic workplace contexts. 
2. Deliver those practice activities as microlearning format in the days and weeks after classroom training or an online learning event.
3. Observe how your staff master knowledge using powerful and insightful analytics. 

Three techniques to improve knowledge retention

The good news is there are certain techniques that can be applied to the learning process to assist in knowledge retention. Let us have a look at some knowledge retention techniques L&D professionals can use.

1. Adopt microlearning

Did you know that after seven days, we forget 90% of what we've learnt!? This is known as the Forgetting Curve which was developed by Hermann Ebbinghaus based on experiments with his own memory, suggesting that as soon as the learning event is completed, participants will start forgetting the material.

Microlearning is an effective way of supporting staff retain critical job role knowledge. With our ever-shrinking attention spans, microlearning provides an interactive solution to the Forgetting Curve.

Staff with busy schedules have a few minutes a day to learn. Microlearning solves this problem because it is bite sized and accessible. It is also a great way to keep critical job role knowledge front of mind.

2. Use spacing and testing

Spacing is the idea of reinforcing training content over time instead of all at once. Think of this as building muscle or toning the body through regular, repeated exercise over weeks and months.

Similarly, knowledge retention is achieved through continual practice — and Forget Me Not provides this continual practice. It supports frequency and consistency — instead of one-off intense training sessions.

Forget Me Not is designed to help staff retain knowledge using questions served up on their mobile in the form of a chat.

3. Make learning mobile

Did you know the average person checks their phone 150 times a day? Our phones are never far away from our sights. We use our mobiles to work, communicate — and now, learn.

Making mobile learning part of everyday life has never been easier. The ease of access will enable knowledge retention due to repeated views.

Putting spaced learning on a smartphone makes it easier and increases accessibility, especially for people working on the frontline.

Forget Me Not uses microlearning, a technique that breaks down job role knowledge into topical, bite-sized chunks that is easier for employees and better for business.

Get in touch for a demo to see how easy it is to embed knowledge into your organisation.

How many of us remember exactly what we learnt in school or in college? We might remember pivotal moments like the graduation ceremony or our first school dance, but in terms of the content we rote learnt for years, it is a distant memory.  So when we attend training sessions at work, how do we know if the content and knowledge is retained, embedded and makes a business impact? In this blog, we explore the benefits of microlearning as an alternative and how it differs from traditional learning.

Limitations of traditional learning 

In traditional learning settings, learning usually is a classroom training session or enrollment in an eLearning module. 

The instructor or eLearning module moderates the flow of knowledge. 

Traditional classes are more suitable for young people who are yet to join the workforce. Regular attendance in classes helps them interact with others, be better disciplined and follow a regular schedule.

In the ‘real world’, employees who take part in the training set up by their managers can feel rushed. Why? Because time is limited, especially given our to-do list that grows each day. How many times do we see people multitasking at training workshops on their laptops or checking their emails while on breaks?

So, if we’re talking about a corporate setting and adult learners, a traditional sit-down classroom-style is not always the best use of time — and certainly not the most effective way to retain the information. 

Unless the learning needs to be in-person because there’s a practical component, then traditional classroom-style doesn’t work — especially in this time of COVID-19.

Let’s not forget that with the pandemic, in-person environments need to be COVID-safe. Organisations have a duty of care to make sure people are safeguarded against injury and illness, which means even more reason to seek alternatives to a face-to-face.

What is the alternative?
Introducing microlearning 

When training is too hard to digest and time isn’t on our side (that makes everyone really), a bite-sized approach is a great solution. Microlearning is more engaging and cost-effective to create compared to face-to-face workshops or bespoke eLearning modules. Depending on the learning objectives, microlearning may not be the best solution for every training need — but it’s an effective one for most workplace learning.

Microlearning delivers short bursts of content for employees to upskill in their own time, at their own convenience. 

Content can come in a variety of formats. For example: 

• Short phrases or paragraphs of text 
• Photos, illustrations, diagrams and infographics 
• Short videos and animations
• Audio which could be parts of a talk or music 
• Quizzes
• Spaced repetition using questions and practical challenges

Five benefits of microlearning

😀 It's fun and engaging

Going back to a classroom may seem like a serious chore to some, so microlearning offers a fun and engaging method of training delivery. It’s like checking your Instagram and Twitter at the same time — but actually learning something meaningful and related to your line of work.

🤔 Better knowledge retention

It’s known that when something is studied repeatedly, revisiting the content makes learning stick. Since micro learning modules are self-paced and bite-sized, they are so easy to return to.

😎 More flexibility and freedom

Classroom-based or online learning is much more rigid in structure and not great for learning on the go. Microlearning can adapt and personalise to the individuals need and be consumed during a lunch break at a cafe, while on the train or in-between seeing clients. 

🤑 It's affordable

A microlearning resource  is also much more affordable to create. Shorter development time frames reduce the cost of production and time to deployment. You can get learning into the hands of your employees faster. Microlearning resources can also double as performance support on the job when employees need to refresh their knowledge on a key process or procedure.

🤓 Efficient delivery of content

Scheduling people off work and backfilling critical frontline staff to attend face-to-face learning is not always easy — or the efficient thing to do. 

Save the headache and hassle — microlearning offers the flexibility to fit in learning whenever and wherever it suits your employees.  

So, what’s the catch?
Limitations of microlearning

There are so many benefits to microlearning, but it depends on the topic on whether this is a suitable method of delivery. Overall,

Microlearning is not suitable for complex concepts 🙄

It’s not entirely impossible, but for more complex or highly technical subject matter, microlearning may not be suitable. Delivering a course in a bite-sized way is great for providing a high-level overview of a subject.

Microlearning is not suitable for in-depth learning 🔬

If there is a topic that requires an in-depth level of study, microlearning may not be the best solution. For example, you can create microlearning for how to be COVID-Safe at work, but perhaps not for studying the principles of molecular virology.

Thanks to the uptake of smartphones, bite-sized training has become more and more popular. With busy schedules and shorter attention spans, microlearning is a great way to deliver training in a fun, engaging and cost-effective way. Organisations can use it for a variety of training needs, such as employee onboarding, compliance training, skills development, customer service and product knowledge.

Explore Forget Me Not

Forget Me Not uses microlearning, a technique that breaks down job role knowledge into topical, bite-sized chunks that is easier for employees and better for business.

Get in touch with us for a demo to see how easy it is to embed knowledge into your organisation.

Forget Me Not is based on three key principles:

1. Little and often

   Regular bites of learning and quizzing enhance knowledge retention.

2. Regular breaks are critical to embed learning

   Overloading or “cramming” the brain doesn’t create knowledge that “sticks.”

3. Questions are more important than answers

   Questions drive people to actively retrieve a piece of knowledge, and this results in improved retention and workplace practice.

In our last blog, we presented three core principles that serve as anchor points for best practice digital learning. One of these anchor points was the idea of ‘little and often’ which is scrutinized more deeply in this post.

The human brain is a wonderful piece of (biological) technology. It is literally designed to quickly let go of millions of bits of data (in the form of images, words, and sounds) it encounters daily while selectively storing only small amounts into memory. Our biological approach, to data management, can easily work against us remembering the things we learn!

When you combine the brain’s preference to quickly jettison data with the demands of modern learners who have only 4.2 minutes a day to learn, the value of ‘little and often’ becomes clearer.

If the brain needs to be ‘prompted’ to store knowledge (achieved through learning) and this prompting needs to fit in with the demands of a modern lifestyle; it makes sense that learning experiences should be little…

given that the experiences will be easier to store…

and therefore, will require less prompting…

and the experiences can more easily be squeezed in between other priorities and responsibilities the learner is managing.

But what does ‘little’ look like?

Microlearning provides one way of visualising ‘little’ digital experiences. Microlearning uses short, focused interactions targeting an increase in learners’ knowledge and skills across a single topic.

Microlearning fits seamlessly into modern learners ‘bite-sized lives’ – where everyone is multitasking and quickly changing between modes of work, travel and socialising.

As a result, microlearning needs to be ubiquitous… learning needs to happen everywhere (in fact anywhere) and whenever the learner has time.  But it doesn’t mean we flood or inundate learners… it’s about establishing a personalised rhythm (that fits within a negotiated organisational schedule or program).

Little = Chunks

Chunking provides another way of visualising ‘little’ digital learning experiences. Chunking helps us get around the short-term memory challenge which is based on the observations that the average learner can only manage seven pieces of information in short-term memory, at a time.

By chunking complex concepts into a sequence of little ideas. We support the learner to progress over time to the complex concept by adding one little idea to another little idea… and so on. Chunking helps us avoid cognitive overload and helps create new neural patterns which is the basis of learning.

Micro-learning is a form of ‘digital chunking’… and just like Barbara Oakley says:

“Chunking is the mother of all learning — or at least the fairy godmother!”

And Barbara should know; she does after all co-teach the world's largest online course: “Learning How to Learn”.

The Big Advantage of ‘Little’

So, our brain and our digitally dependent lifestyles can take advantage of an approach to learning that chunks knowledge and skills into microlearning experiences that are continuously consumed at a time and place set by the learner.

Consistently engaging with a supply of digital learning chunks establishes a rhythm and learning becomes habitual.

If this all makes sense, then why isn’t everyone adopting a ‘little and often’ strategy?

Why do our designs rely so heavily on intensive training rather than consistent training?

We need to find a way to support continuous, habitual learning using easily accessible stream of chunked digital experiences!

Since about 2014

Most research indicates mobile use levels have outstripped time spent on ‘traditional’ computers such as laptop since about 2014. And as part of this trend we have witnessed the rise of mobile ‘apps’.

Interestingly app users tend to adopt a “little and often” approach – users swap quickly from app to app as part of the bite-sized lifestyle.

The mobile phone-app environment tends to encourage consistent (and frequent) engagement over irregular intense engagement.

Consistency vs Intensity

When it comes to comparing consistency and intensity, Bruce Lee has this space covered… check Google out if you don’t believe me!

Simon Sinek emphasises the importance of consistency… he believes if you are interested in outcomes focus on consistency!

Simon believes we like intensity “because it is easy to measure”!

Pete Huang compares examples and the benefits of intense versus consistent learning regimes.

Of most interest is the learning approach designed by Karen Cheng called “Give It 100”. The "Give it 100" approach proposes and supports the concept of a 100-day challenge. Karen Cheng argues that through consistent application over 100 days you can gradually but confidently improve knowledge, skills and performance in a targeted area. Everyday learners share a 10-second video of their progress, tracking achievements every step of the way.

To support the modern learner build a continuous learning habit we need to:

1. promote the consistent and frequent use of chunked digital experiences
2. make chunked experiences accessible via apps
3. encourage sustained participation by tracking and sharing gradual improvements and mastery!

APP Learning

We can see examples of how little and often, delivered by an app, changes people through weight-loss programs, fitness programs, the “Give it 100” strategy and even language training programs. So why not leverage this successful formula and drive workplace learning through the roof in your organisation?

It's in your hands… you can remain committed to intensive approaches to learning because they are what people expect and they are easy to measure. Or you can explore the potential benefits of building a continuous learning habit that delivers sustainable improvements over time.

My guess is that if you are still reading this post, you’re committed to the concept of ‘little and often’ and you subscribe to the benefits of a continuous learning habit in the workplace. Low-cost technology is already available in the market to support your exploration of these ideas.

But maybe before you start downloading apps and working out which one provides both value for money and the outcomes your organisation needs… think about building support inside your organisation for a pilot or test & learn strategy that shifts the focus from intensive learning to consistent learning rhythms

I’m committed to helping our clients build the competence and confidence of their teams. To subscribe to this blog send your email below.

Right now your training consulting business is Clark Kent. Hard-working, reliable and trustworthy. But what if we told you that with some help, your consultancy could pop into a metaphorical phone booth and emerge as a superhero, or in this case super consultancy. With these training superpowers you could start to change the world, advancing knowledge for the good of us all.

Powers that revolutionise the way employees learn at work.

Would you want to find out more?

Of course you would!

So take our hand and hold on tight. We’re about to take you on a journey that will change the way you think about learning.

Meet traditional learning

In every superhero story there has to be a super-villain. And ours is no exception. The villain in our story is traditional learning and it has been around (and doing the same thing) for a very long time.

It takes the form of one size fits all, the leadership program with an upfront diagnostic, some workshops with a sage on stage and then a few follow up action learning or reflective activities. At least the workshop format is better than the alternative. PowerPoint presentations converted into eLearning modules pushed out by the LMS with an expectation that you do it once and somehow, you’ve mastered that skill or knowledge domain.

To make things worse, traditional learning is often extremely linear in its approach and only allows everyone to learn at one pace. That of the slowest.

As a result, it often leaves learners feeling dull and unmotivated.

The result? Information that goes in one ear and comes out the other.

It’s clear the world needs a broader mix of learning options to help people feel confident in their job role and thrive at work.

Who will save the day?

Remember the name 

Forget Me Not is a revolutionary mobile-first app that continuously builds knowledge and skills by engaging learners in regular 5-minute learning challenges. These repeat over days and weeks, until the knowledge is mastered.

It’s based on three key principles:

1. Little and often

2. Regular breaks are critical to embed learning 

3. Questions are more important than answers

We believe that it is questions that drive people to actively retrieve a piece of knowledge and this results in improved retention and workplace practice.

Microlearning, the source of our superpower

Our superpower doesn’t come from the sun or from a radioactive spider. It comes from microlearning, a technique that breaks down job role knowledge into topical, bite-sized chunks that are easier for employees to access (because they learn at their own pace) and better for business.

This allows employees to build their knowledge, skills and confidence in a timely manner that is convenient to their busy lives.

According to the Journal of Applied Psychology, microlearning makes the transfer of learning 17% more efficient.

Not only that, but it neatly removes the problem of filling their minds with information that is not relevant.

And, because of its social media type format and emphasis on acquiring knowledge rather than just “googling” it, microlearning also leads to 50% more engagement.

How super is that?

How Forget Me Not can super-power up your training

So now you know what Forget Me Not can do, let’s talk about what it can do for you and your training consultancy.

First up, Forget Me Not is going to help you stand out from your competitors. Just as a musclebound man in blue skin-tight costume, red cloak and external underpants, stands out.

Its power lies in its flexibility. It can be used anywhere and at any time during a learner’s journey. Because of this, it is perfect for building awareness, strengthening lessons learnt and helping to prompt the recall of key job role knowledge.

Forget Me Not can also be used in lots of ways to expand your market reach. It can help improve levels of client satisfaction and enhance learning outcomes delivered by your programs. Plus, it provides a way of digitising your training product, and this can broaden your delivery options and build new revenue streams. So don’t let your training consultancy fall victim to the perils of Traditional Learning. Embrace a new way of micro-learning that:

• Fits in with the busy time-poor lifestyles of today’s employees.
• Can be utilised anywhere
• Allows relevant task-related learning happen on the job
• Works in sympathy with the brain’s natural way of absorbing information
• Helps employees build their knowledge, skills and confidence.

Traditional learning has met its match.
The future belongs to a new type of learning hero.

I’m committed to helping our clients build the competence and confidence of their teams. To subscribe to this blog send your email below.

Over the last few years, like many in corporate HR, I've been drawn to Josh Bersin's research and insights. He has provided us with a perspective on the modern learner. Designing workplace learning solutions for these modern learners inspires our research and development activity at Obvious Choice.

It got us thinking about a little and often learning strategy to help constantly interrupted employees learn at work.

.

Why We MUST Call TIME on traditional Training? 

A Bersin by Deloitte study, claims most employees only have 24 minutes a week to focus on their own training and development. That’s just 1% of their working week. Today's time-poor workers no longer have time for traditional training programs. But they must still learn new skills for work. It feels like a suckers choice for us designing learning solutions. It doesn't have to be. If you want to keep employees motivated and engaged your business must find new ways to support a continuous learning habit.

Humans are forgetting machines

To further compound the problem of traditional training, recent replicated studies of the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, suggest that any information employees do take in is often in one ear and out the other. In you believe in forgetting curve folklore, 50% of any new knowledge is forgotten within an hour of learning it, with this figure rising sharply to 70% within 24 hours if it is not followed up with some sort of spaced repetition.

Clearly, a traditional approach to L&D cannot cut it within these parameters. Businesses can no longer afford to spend money on training that creates waste. What is the point investing time and money in creating training programs, if employees are unlikely to retain the information or more importantly apply it on the job. 

So, is it possible to teach your employees useful and relevant information in a way that fits into the flow of work? Can you start to leverage the science of learning to enhance your practice?

Questions are a powerful learning tool but …

We have been focusing our energy designing questions mostly for the wrong things with very little pay-off for the individual employee or the business. eLearning quizzes are a measure of rote learning. We need to start using questions as practice retrievals events. Combining practice retrieval events (questions) with the spacing effect leads to learning that sticks, when employees need to apply or remember something or adapt performance to a job situation.

Forget Me Not is a mobile-first app that continuously builds knowledge and skills by engaging employees in regular 5-minute microlearning challenges. These challenges or practice retrieval events repeat over days and weeks until the knowledge is mastered.

It's based on three key principles:

1. Little and often

2. Regular breaks are critical to embed learning 

3. Questions are more important than answers

Questions drive people to actively retrieve a piece of knowledge and this results in improved retention and workplace practice. 

“It’s like having your very own memory coach.
And it’s all wrapped up in a natural social-media chat experience.”

- David Becker
Chief Learning Officer - Obvious Choice

I’m committed to helping our clients build the competence and confidence of their teams. To subscribe to this blog send your email below.

In October 2019, the Royal Commission into Aged Care Quality and Safety interim report shone a spotlight on some of the practices routinely occurring in Australia’s nursing homes.

The report makes for distressing reading, detailing as it does, elder neglect seemingly unimaginable in an enlightened country like Australia.

These issues are not confined to Australia, with the World Health Organisation reporting that 15.7% of people aged 60 and over were subject to some form of abuse or neglect. Shockingly, 2 out of 3 nursing home respondents reported that they had abused the residents in their care at some stage in the past year.

Whatever the reasons for this systemic abuse, it is clear elder abuse and neglect is a serious public health problem. No doubt, this issue will be more fully detailed when the final royal commission report comes out in 2021.

But we don’t have to wait till then to address one of the major problems so
clearly highlighted in the interim report - staff training.

OVERWORKED, UNDERPAID

The aged care sector suffers from severe difficulties in recruiting, training, and retaining staff.

One of the lead causes for this is pay and conditions. Remuneration is comparable to job roles with repetitive work tasks – even though the delivery of safe, quality, customer centred aged care draws on a much broader range of interpersonal and soft skills.

According to Louise O’Neill, CEO, Aged Care Workforce Industry Council,

“Aged care workers are paid less for working in aged care than if they were doing comparable work in another sector.”

In addition, workloads are extremely heavy and staff sometimes lack key skills and training to help them cope with their job. When someone doesn't have the knowledge or skill to do their job confidently,  consumer issues and incidents are inevitable.

According to the interim report (page 6) some of the common problems that stem from inadequate training include:

• Improperly administering medications
• Not changing the residents’ bedsheets or clothes
• Not checking for bedsores
• Not knowing how to perform CPR
• Not treating the residents properly for diseases or infections
• Not recognising when a resident has an issue or is in distress

Examples such as these clearly indicate how we train aged care workers needs a rethink if we want them to have the knowledge and skills to deliver great quality care. Our approach to staff training needs to be more consistent. We need to replace training intensity (one off training every now and then) with consistency.

TIME-POOR aged CARE WORKERS

Unfortunately, however, aged care is a notoriously time-poor sector, with employees working long and physically demanding shifts. As a result, they are often too tired, both mentally and physically to sit down in front of a computer and complete elearning modules. A little and often approach to learning is a more suitable alternative. 

And that’s where we want to help.

Since 2013, we’ve been examining the efficacy of eLearning and questioning if it has kept pace with the needs of today's workforce.

Research shows that eLearning is increasingly viewed as outmoded and of little relevance to today’s employees, with companies looking to new and innovative technology solutions to train their staff.

Determined to improve the business outcomes from learning, the research team at Obvious Choice started brainstorming new and better ways to help people learn at work.

The Result?

Forget Me Not is an app that continuously builds knowledge and skills by engaging employees in regular 5-minute learning challenges. Challenges repeat over days and weeks, until the knowledge is mastered.

“It’s like having your very own memory coach.
And it’s all wrapped up in a natural social-media chat experience.”

- QGirl, your modern learning Superhero!

Forget Me Not is based on three key principles:

1. Little and often

2. Regular breaks are critical to embed learning 

3. Questions are more important than answers

Questions drive people to actively retrieve a piece of knowledge and this results in improved retention and workplace practice. 

Forget Me Not uses microlearning, a technique that breaks down job role knowledge into topical, bite-sized chunks that is easier for employees and better for business. This is because of the forgetting curve but that’s a blog for another day.

Aged care workers need a variety of learning techniques to build their knowledge, skills and confidence.

Trial it now

A LITTLE BIT MORE ABOUT MICROLEARNING:

Microlearning is short form content that only takes between 1 - 5 minutes to consume.

It can exist in any media format including text, graphic, video or audio.

The main differences between microlearning and traditional eLearning are that it takes less time to create, is much easier to digest and focuses on a single concept, like how to spot signs of neglect in an elderly resident.

Turns out, our attention is a finite resource. A bit like time. Forget Me Not only requires a few minutes of focused attention and commitment to building skill and knowledge every day. 

And the app keep things interesting with different scenarios and challenges that maintains curiosity and engagement. 

MICROLEARNING & AGED CARE

Let’s say you run an aged care facility and you want to upskill your employees.

You simply sign them up to the Forget Me Not app and they will start receiving questions that reinforce how to deliver safe, quality consumer centered care.

These questions take the form of 5-minute top ups of knowledge every shift they work.

Staff will be able to reinforce key skills like how to communicate effectively with residents, problem solving consumer issues, situational awareness, prioritising work tasks and meaningful engagement.

The questions also help to highlight gaps in your workforce’s knowledge so you can identify individuals who may need additional support, coaching and supervision.

BETTER TRAINED STAFF =
HAPPIER RESIDENTS = HAPPIER STAFF

There is no quick-fix or one size solution to the problems highlighted in the Royal Commission’s interim report. But one issue, staff training and competency, can be addressed right now.

The automated delivery of microlearning content ensures staff are able to learn continuously and in a way that works for your business.

By learning new skills and topping up on old ones, aged care workers will be able to better understand and address residents’ needs.

Feeling confident solving problems and issues for residents will help aged care workers feel happier and give their work even more purpose. And when that happens, tasks that were previously routine become heart-warming activities.

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Digital learning, those experiences supported by technology connected to the internet, can just as easily add barriers as it can bridge gaps in the learning process.When it comes to digital learning, I think we need to know whether we’re building digital bridges or erecting barriers. Digital learning can easily overwhelm, inundate, and confuse the learner with options, prompts, challenges and an unpredictable torrent of information… some helpful and some not! I am not suggesting that this learning experience is better or worse, but it is decidedly different.

Why digital bridges become unintended barriers?

Digital learning is often more dynamic, visual and self-directed than other types of learning. Digital learners can usually curate learning resources, and sometimes they can even curate the learning process, through designs that take advantage of gamification, open ecosystems and collaboration supported by social media.

All these possibilities create limitless opportunities to design and deliver learning experiences that change lives and improve the performance of people, teams and organisations. However, instead of combining to create a compelling, coherent learning experience all this opportunity can quickly snowball into a chaotic collection of ideas.

Barrier # 1: The “Lost in Internet” Effect

Based on a study in the International Journal of Mobile Communications and Telematics, it’s clear the nearly infinite amount of information available through the Internet can enhance the learning experience.

It does this by creating freedom for the learner to explore, however the torrent of information can easily cause learners to lose their sense of direction, become disoriented and ultimately demotivated and disengaged. It’s called the “Lost in Internet” effect and to ensure our digital learning bridges gaps then we need to carefully manage this effect in our designs.

Barrier # 2: Balancing Cognitive Load

Digital learners quickly become reliant on the linear presentation of knowledge usually available via technology which reduces the demand on learners to organise new knowledge, to think and reflect. These linear presentations tend to reduce cognitive load however it also tends to make the experience less challenging which erodes engagement and learner curiosity.

Long linear presentations also fail to ‘chunk’ information which allows learners to self-assess and self-direct progress. Cognitive load continues to build if information chunking is ignored during the design process… and learners aren’t given the chance to check, adapt and succeed.

3 hacks to bridge gaps

With these challenges in mind I tend to rely on three simple principles to ensure digital learning bridges gaps instead of building barriers. I look for instructional design thinking and digital platforms that support the use of these principles. I think that there are lots of creative ways to leverage these principles and few thought leaders out there in the market are showing us how! But just what are these principles?

1. Little and often

This principle is all about understanding that consistency is more important than intensity if you are interested in authentic, embedded learning.

Sustained, tightly curated, challenging digital experiences ensure learners don’t become disoriented, demotivated or disengaged.

2. Breaks are critical

In my opinion, this is one of the most underrated design essentials. To organise new knowledge, to think through what it means and to then use what has been learnt takes time.

We need a break… sometimes just a few minutes sometimes a lot longer. This is part of the reason micro-learning is so effective.

3. Questions are more important than answers

This principle is all about knowledge retention and even knowledge application. Both activities rely on retrieval practice.

This is about continually re-connecting with knowledge to combat the forgetting curve and help us improve our cognitive load capacity.

By paying attention to these principles your digital learning experiences will bridge gaps, avoid learners being ‘lost in the Internet’ and strengthen cognitive load capacity of learners.

These three principles drive the effectiveness of micro-learning campaigns, apps using the spacing and testing effect and learning ecosystems that prioritise the use of digital resources over courses. We will be exploring these contemporary approaches to digital learning in future blog posts… so stay tuned.

It’s not that difficult. Your digital experience needs to deliver a sustained series of drip-feed challenges (rather than one intense downpour) designed to encourage reflection and drive learning that builds confidence and leads to mastery!

I’m committed to building and promoting a discussion around these principles and other related ideas. To subscribe to this blog send your email below.

Microlearning can help your organization build a workforce that is consistently ready for the ever-changing environment in your industry. A workforce that can retain job critical knowledge, is a workforce that is able to continuously perform at high standards.

Forget Me Not is based on three simple ideas:

1. Little and often

Regular bites of knowledge to long term memory with drips of content rolled out frequently rather than all at once.

2. Taking a break is critical to encode knowledge

Taking breaks between learning is important to embed new knowledge to long term memory.

3. Questions are more important than answers

Questions drive knowledge retrieval which helps people retain knowledge and embed new habits.

Hear from one of our clients on how Forget Me Not helped improve the training of their staff.

"AnglicareSA have worked with Obvious Choice for many years, and personally I have worked with them across different industries.  James Stack and his team are the elite professionals in the Learning and Development contemporary learning space.  They offer tailored, value add solutions and are always across best practice.  Their research into how individuals and teams learn is quite ground-breaking, and they offer practical options based on this research and their experience".

These driving principles from Forget Me Not allows organizations to be ahead of the curve by implementing microlearning into their learning and development. Trying out Forget Me Not is as easy and convenient. Get in touch with us to explore what Forget Me Not has to offer by clicking below.

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