One of the biggest mistakes companies make in their training programs is this: they create a program just to have a training program. They fail to create training that helps the company achieve its performance goals. A great way to boost your training program is with context-based learning. Your trainers will bring more energy. Your trainees will stay engaged and retain more information. The whole program will be more effective, and the result will show within your company. So, what is a context-based training program?
Context-based learning is the use of real-life context -- as well as hypothetical scenarios that reflect real-life -- in training which provides the context for theoretical teaching. The purpose is to relate theory to real-life situations and reinforce learning, ultimately creating functional competence within your team. A context-based learning program is an alternative to content-based teaching. It’s a way to bring “real world” understanding and help your trainees stay engaged and retain information.
Context-based learning and training benefit both the teachers and the trainees.
Aside from benefiting both trainers and trainees, a good context-based learning program also benefits the company overall. Employees deliver more value to your customers. As employees turn over, corporate knowledge remains and grows. From that comes efficiency and better business performance.
There are seven steps to creating an effective corporate training program. These steps include identifying objectives, conducting assessments before, during, and after training, designing and creating content, and building it all out in your Learning Management System. Context-based learning is like ethics -- it needs to be included in every part of your training program, from planning to development to implementation to assessments. So, in order to develop a context-based learning program, add real-world scenarios into your training and assessments. Then, you’ll have developed a proper context-based learning program for your corporate training program.
If you’re ready to update your training program to include content that is context-based, contact our team today. We specialize in creating engaging context-based learning material for teams just like yours. Schedule a time on our Calendar.