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Personalised learning is the process of tailoring topics, areas of focus, the pace of learning and learning methods toward the specific learner, where each learning journey and its activities are relevant to each person. The process of personalising learning is excellent for personal development. The process of customising the learning to best support the individual's needs, abilities, and background allows the learners to study at a level and pace most suitable to them and achieves outcomes specific to their learning journey.
94% of businesses say personalisation is critical to their success. Through custom learning journeys, the learner can improve their overall workplace success in terms of:
- Shortening the overall learning process
- Improving the skills that are most relevant to the learner's role at work
- Improving overall performance at work
- Increase the well-being of the worker
Individuals with personalised learning journeys can achieve results that they may not have reached otherwise, as it not only reduces the stress that is often encountered with learning but also focuses on the specific support that the specific learner needs.
Personalised learning supports workplace learners through:
Flexible learning paths
Due to the current global workforce shortages, many companies are looking at employee retention over the employee hiring process. Employee retention can overcome the shortage of skills through engaging in flexible learning paths that aim to upskill the current workforce.
Flexible learning pathways encompass courses and modules that help each learner reach a larger goal. Take, for example, an undergraduate student, where each class acts as a step closer to retaining the overall goal of a bachelor's degree. The same applies to the workforce, where each module or course focuses on developing the skills necessary to reach the overall company goal.
The pathway involves multiple learning milestones of classes, micro-learning tasks, modules, and training that differ from employee to employee to help develop their skills to advance professionally in their careers. The learning pathway is a map that helps employees connect all the individual elements of the learning program into one cohesive achievement. Each milestone is a source of motivation and accomplishment as they progress to their overall goal.
Personal goal setting
The business world is highly competitive, and employees must align their personal goals with the business goal to ensure the company's success. Personalised learning comes into play here, where employee development enables them to align their goals of upskilling with the business's goal more effectively than generic training. Generic training looks at training all employees for the same goal, whereas personalised training looks at the individual's strengths and weaknesses and paves a path for them to get to where they need to be.
A custom learning approach matches the learner's motivation, readiness and strength levels to address their future needs. Leading to higher interest, engagement and proactivity throughout their learning journey. Developing these specific experiences is a great way to attract and retain talent, as the customisation helps learners to meet their goals more effectively and efficiently.
Audience segmentation
Personalisation is an excellent tool for analysing customer data and finding insights and patterns.
Personalisation allows for marketing efforts to be specific to the audience. It is the practice of using data to deliver brand messages targeted to an individual prospect or group. By looking into the individual learner's strengths and weaknesses, they can target the specific markets that would suit their strengths.
Content recommendations
Content recommendation is the process that decides what content to recommend to individual learners. Companies that want to provide a personalised experience employ content recommendation through analysing user experiences and data, the process of content recommendation when learning follows four main steps to ensure personalisation:
Data collection: All content recommendations need data to base their recommendations on; these are metrics that include demographics, learning habits, keywords etc.
Data storage: The data and metrics collected from the previous step must be stored in a database so recommendations can be executed based on groupings of specific data.
Data analysis: Analysing the data into relationships and patterns allows the system to make specific recommendations based on the individual's activity.
Data filtration: This final step filters the data to obtain the necessary information to make accurate recommendations for the user.
These four steps ensure the collection and sorting of all sorts of learner data to ensure the content the learner is exposed to is relevant to their personalised learning journey. The more data collected, the more specific and relevant the learning will be.
Adaptive learning
Adaptive learning is the delivery of custom learning journeys that focuses on an individual's unique needs. It does so through just-in-time feedback, pathways, and resources to avoid providing a one-size-fits-all learning experience. The reason for adaptive learning surrounds the idea that each learner learns in different ways. The use of adaptive models that range from technological programs to intelligence systems can be used to develop an adaptive learning model that stands separate from traditional classroom learning.
To introduce adaptive learning, you must look at the unique needs of each student, where the learning model allows course material to be customised to the learner, creating a unique experience that is not offered by traditional techniques. This learning method will enable assessments to be immediately graded, providing instructors with the required feedback and performance reviews to recommend intervention. This allows the instructor to cater to the individual needs of each of their learners. By providing students with immediate assistance, resources specific to their learning needs and relevant feedback, you can guide students along their learning journey in an effective manner.
Each form of personalised learning allows workplace learning to be adjusted to the needs of each employee accordingly. The content, goals and learning objectives should differ from learner to learner to facilitate personal development.
Technology has introduced a catalyst for making personalised learning accessible and affordable. Studies have shown the positive effects of personalised learning as it enters the business world. Initiating personalised learning in your workplace is the beginning of seeing real behaviour changes and goal achievement.