Area9 Lyceum Blog

Can Learning Outcomes Be Improved While Lowering Costs?

It is fairly easy to lower learning costs: create and deliver fewer courses, and/or move classroom courses online. Maybe even dump formal training altogether and switch to “user generated content.” But is it possible to lower costs without negatively impacting learning and business outcomes—and perhaps even improving them? As COVID-19 continues to escalate in the U.S., this question is more important than ever. In this blog, I’ll discuss how corporate learning and development (L&D) can answer the CFO’s call to “do more with less.”

Kaspersky has unveiled its new Kaspersky Adaptive Online Training, developed in partnership with Area9 Lyceum. The solution generates a security awareness curriculum that is tailored to each individual user’s learning needs, as a personal tutor would do for their students. The content for this new enterprise-grade solution is based on Kaspersky’s cybersecurity expertise and delivered in accordance with modern learning techniques.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted the business landscape, with lasting changes in the ways in which people work and learn. As Microsoft President Brad Smith said in a recent CNBC interview, “I think there is a greater acceptance of almost remote everything.” Hand-in-hand with widespread remote working is the need for more effective remote learning.

Back in the middle of October I sat down with Christopher Lind as part of his Learning Tech Talks. In this wide ranging discussion we dove into the state of the learning industry and the role that adaptive learning can and will play in dramatically improving learning outcomes for everyone. 

New talent development approaches are driving the thinking around hiring vs. retraining to respond to rapidly evolving technology, a global skills shortage, and the cost of continuously hiring new talent. As employers grapple with their talent demands, a conversation around reskilling must occur among managers, corporate leaders, HR, and chief learning officers (CLOs).

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) offer a bold vision: addressing some of the most pressing challenges in the world today. As each goal is pursued, we must consider the impact of learning and education for all, from workers who need to be retrained to children for whom equality in education is the gateway to a better life.

One of the many benefits of using an adaptive learning platform is the amount of data generated to personalize learners’ experiences, based on what they have already mastered and where they need reinforcement. While the depth and granularity of such data are typically viewed positively for effective corporate learning and development (L&D), in some instances it could be perceived as problematic.

The “Netflixization” of corporate e-learning – the explosion of video-based content and microlearning, combined with ratings and recommendations – has received a lot of attention lately. Is it a step forward for corporate learning, or is it a distraction?

Pursuing the ‘Holy Grail’ of Metrics and Measurement in Corporate e-Learning

For chief learning officers (CLOs), the Holy Grail of learning and development (L&D) is driving behavioral change aligned with business strategy. Key to this quest is obtaining evidence that L&D actions are making a difference; ideally, “leading indicators” of behavioral change, for example that interventions are actually helping people learn.

Meeting the Needs of “New-Collar” Workers with Corporate e-Learning Strategies.

Traditional corporate training, a $100 billion market in the U.S. alone, is long overdue an overhaul. Time and again, costly programs have failed to change behavior among people and within organizations to produce better business outcomes. With training yielding such a low return on investment (ROI), corporate learning and development (L&D) in general and corporate e-learning in particular are in dire need of revamping—and that is putting more attention on chief learning officers (CLOs).

Corporate e-learning has deep roots, arguably dating back to the very first modern “distance education course” developed by Isaac Pitman in the mid-1840s. Pittman sent his correspondence-course students shorthand texts transcribed onto postcards and received transcriptions back from them to be graded. Feedback was a crucial element.