Motivation, attention, commitment…. These are words that come up again and again when we talk about e-learning.
The digital learning market is evolving fast, and learners’ needs are constantly changing. It has become increasingly challenging to maintain learners’ attention and commitment. The solutions on offer often revolve around technologies or new tools that need to be implemented. And this can be time-consuming and discouraging for training teams, who sometimes have neither the human resources, nor the in-house skills, nor the financial resources.
However, there are “age-old” motivational mechanisms that each and every one of us is capable of achieving.
Indeed, I’m willing to bet that you’ve already concentrated so deeply on an action that nothing else mattered at that moment and you even lost track of time. Or that you’ve felt an immense sense of satisfaction after doing something to the best of your ability.
These more spiritual and disruptive concepts, such as flow, Ikigaï, chanto and sweetspot, can be widely applied to training. Let’s discover them together in this article!
The Flow state – What is Flow?
Flow is that state where time seems to disappear and the individual is completely immersed in his or her activity. Hungarian psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes flow as an optimal experience, characterised by high levels of concentration, control and pleasure. To achieve this state, certain conditions must be met, including a balance between the challenges offered and the skills of the individual, clear objectives and immediate feedback.
How can we create training experiences that encourage a state of flow?
- Balancing challenges and skills
- Individualisation of training content: adapt e-learning content to match learners’ individual skills. Use pre-assessments to determine skill levels and adjust the challenges accordingly.
- Gradual progression: Structure your content in sequences to gradually increase the difficulty, allowing learners to develop their skills at their own pace.
- Clear, concrete objectives
- Define specific objectives: Each training module or activity should have clear, measurable objectives. This gives meaning and helps learners understand what they need to achieve and focus on their tasks.
- Instant feedback: Offer instant feedback to help learners know if they’re on the right track. Real-time quizzes, automated assessments and feedback from trainers can be very effective.
- Creating an immersive learning environment
- Use of gamification levers: Incorporate game elements such as badges, rankings, points and rewards to make learning more engaging and dynamic. Visualising progress through rewards such as badges, points or levels will automatically encourage learners to progress further.
- Interactive activities: Encourage interaction through online discussions, forums, group work and practical projects.
Ikigai – Can you find your Ikigai through online training?
What is Ikigai?
The Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means “reason for being”. It’s about finding a balance between what you love, what you’re good at, what the world needs, and what you can get paid for. In the context of e-learning, helping learners to discover their ikigai can motivate them to pursue their learning with passion and determination.
Integrating Ikigai into e-learning programmes
- Aligning training programmes with learners’ passions
- Diversity of content: You can offer a variety of courses covering different areas to help learners explore their passions.
- Interest assessment: To take this a step further, you can use interest tests to understand your learners’ passions and offer training courses that align with these interests. Taking an interest in your employees and giving them the opportunity to learn about a variety of subjects will make them want to get involved in the company. We call this the symmetry of attentions: the more fulfilled an employee is, the more involved they will be in their missions.
- Skills development
- Practical training: Offer practical activities and projects that enable learners to develop and perfect their skills.
- Mentoring and coaching: Set up mentoring programmes where learners can receive advice from experienced professionals.
- Meeting the world’s needs
- Training focused on societal issues: Offer training that addresses global challenges and shows how the skills acquired can be used to help solve these problems.
- Encourage social entrepreneurship: Encourage learners to develop projects that have a positive social impact.
Training teams can also use the Ikigai concept to build an engaging training programme. In this case, the following 4 parts should be used:
- What learners like
- A user-friendly, fun, social experience
- Content on a variety of subjects and methods
- What the world needs
- What makes sense to learners: the company’s vision and mission.
- What learners are paid for
- Correlation with the company’s business objectives
- Correlation with their day-to-day concerns/assignments; their professional objectives
- What they’re good at
- Their innate and/or acquired skills
Sweetspot – How can sweetspot be integrated into e-learning to boost engagement?
What is a sweetspot?
The sweetspot is a concept that combines fun and learning. It’s about making the learning process enjoyable and motivating for learners. By incorporating fun and motivating elements, e-learning platforms can considerably improve learner engagement.
- Gamification and rewards
- Badges and certifications: Introduce badge, credit and certification systems to reward learners’ achievements and motivate them to continue.
- Points systems, leaderboards and duels: Use points systems, challenges and leaderboards to create friendly competition between learners.
- Rewards: Set up a rewards system to engage and retain your learners
- Interactive and fun activities
- Educational games: Include educational games that allow learners to practise their skills in a fun way.
- Challenges and competitions: Organise challenges and competitions to stimulate interest and create emulation between learners.
- Community and collaboration
- Discussion forums: Create discussion forums where learners can interact, share experiences and help each other.
- Group projects: Encourage group projects to promote collaboration and collective learning.
Chanto Suru – Applying Chanto Suru to boost your sense of satisfaction
What is Chanto Suru?
Chanto suru is a Japanese practice of discipline and respect for rules. In the context of e-learning, chanto suru can help learners to do things with great care and attention.
In fact, the more you improve, the more the task you’re doing becomes second nature. It becomes easy and you can derive a sense of pleasure from it because you know you’ve done things the right way.
So this feeling can be found in every area of life: you can water the flowers properly, you can dispose of the rubbish properly. I’m sure that anyone who has been to Japan will realise that there are up to 17 different types of rubbish, depending on the city you’re in. Sorting rubbish is a complicated process, but doing it properly gives you a feeling of doing things right.
Chanto suru is also associated with the state of flow, because when you carry out even the smallest, most mundane task correctly, paying attention to detail, you can achieve flow.
This creates a pleasant feeling of control and satisfaction, which each of your learners will want to maintain.
How can Chanto Suru be incorporated into online training?
- Establish clear guidelines
- Course guidelines: Provide clear, detailed instructions on course expectations and requirements.
- Commitment contracts: Ask learners to sign a commitment contract to reinforce their personal discipline.
- Encouraging self-discipline
- Planning and organisation: Help learners to plan their time and organise their work effectively.
- Regular assessment and monitoring: Set up regular monitoring and assessment to keep learners on track.
- Promoting respect for deadlines
- Strict deadlines: Set deadlines for course completion to encourage learners to meet deadlines.
- Reminders and notifications: Use reminders and notifications to help learners remember important deadlines.
Conclusion
Integrating the concepts of flow, ikigai, sweetspot and chanto suru into e-learning can transform the learning experience for learners. By creating immersive learning environments, aligning training content with learners’ passions and skills, making learning enjoyable and instilling a desire to do things well, training teams have universal levers for maximising learner engagement and effectiveness.
