Online Learning Increases Employee Engagement: Seven Learning Styles

“On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction,” concludes a report by the Department of Education (DOE). In fact, in the DOE’s report “Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online learning,” students doing at least some of their course online ranked in the 59th percentile compared to wholly in-classroom taught students, who scored in the 50th percentile. This performance was found to be statistically significant, meaning these results are not due to random error or chance.

If this is the case, why aren’t more organizations using online learning to improve training, increase retention, reduce travel costs and minimize time away from the office?

Perhaps organizations don’t know why online learning matters, what it is, or how to execute it. Let’s start with why it matters.

WHY DOES ONLINE LEARNING MATTER?

Adults learn in different ways. The more learning ways that a training program includes, the higher chance of knowledge retention. In other words, using a variety of learning styles in a training program will help the trainee remember the new skills longer and deeper. Online learning offers the best chance to incorporate many learning styles at once.

Seven Learning Styles For Designing Training Materials

1. Spatial Learners

Interconnected ideas rather than linear, sequential processes are easier to digest for spatial learners. Bulleted lists don’t do it for this crowd. This learning style leans heavily on patterns and visual pictures to explain a concept.

Here are three examples of designing for spatial learners:

a) Image-based Power Point

Sometimes it’s hard to get away from presentations, but they can still be fashioned for visual learners. Presentation Zen is one of my favorite books. If you browse through Ted.com, you’ll also find fantastic examples of effective, visual Power Points.

When using tools as communication aids, it’s important to understand their purpose and role. Visuals make it easier for spatial learners to recall or apply a concept. Powerful visuals can help your audience remember your content, which is at the core of knowledge transfer.

b) Game Simulations

Timed exams can make spatial learners extremely anxious as the pressure of translating their mental images into words can take longer for them than others, which creates a stressful situation for them. Game simulations make it easier for visual learners to create a link and memory, to better absorb the information.

The Use of Computer Simulations and Gaming to Enhance Authentic Learning from zollnera

c) Mind Mapping

Mind mapping is an increasingly popular tool to visualize ideas and brainstorm ideas effectively. Though this might be more difficult to do in a traditional setting, there are lots of online tools which help facilitate the creation of mind maps, providing an easy way for a group to brainstorm together, versus the traditional outline model. Mind mapping can be incorporated in a variety of ways to assist in planning presentations. Mind Tools has a great article explaining how to use mind maps effectively.

 2. Linguistic Learners

Written words best explain a concept to these individuals, so activities involving reading and writing appeal the most. Spoken word can also be effective with this crowd.

These learners respond best to reading and writing assignments, so think of how to incorporate blogging, articles, white papers or online discussion boards into the training. These learners also like to debate, so assignments that look at two sides of an argument can be an effective way for these individuals to apply knowledge and increase engagement.

3. Intrapersonal Learners

Using auditory information, and then allowing the participant a time of internal reflection, best helps these learners retain information.

These individuals like to control their environment and take in new information at their own speed, which allows them time to process and think about a matter deeply. Two examples that best demonstrate this style are:

a) Podcasts

Radio shows have received a comeback through the form of Podcasts. One of my favorite podcasts is This American Life which distills 2-3 short stories with common themes and presents them to listeners in an hour-long podcast. These engaging podcasts allow listeners to absorb the information while also prompting them to think deeper as the show continues.

b) Lectures

Sometimes traditional lectures are essential to get your point across; however they can still be peppered with the other learning styles mentioned here. Make sure you insert questions and other activities throughout lectures in order to keep listeners engaged. TED talks are full of excellent presentations for this crowd.

4. Interpersonal Learners

Using group dynamics to explain a concept is most effective for this group of learners.

Dynamic conversations can be a fantastic way of explaining concepts, especially when dealing with sensitive topics. Discussions can integrate other engaging activities, such as role play or games to get the discussion going. Planning ahead is necessary to achieve the desired learning outcomes. Do you want participants to remember and understand a concept, apply and analyze on a deeper level or evaluate and create something new? One tip is to ask open-ended questions that prompt, justify, clarify, extend, redirect and help guide group discussion.

5. Musical Learners

Using music as the trigger to remember new knowledge is powerful for this group of learners.

Playing The Who’s song, Talkin’ Bout My Generation, during a presentation to Baby Boomers helps this group of learners remember that time in their lives. This then evokes a powerful memory which keeps them engaged during the training.

6. Bodily-Kinesthetic Learners

Using the bodily senses to describe and ‘feel’ a concept help this learner remember new knowledge.

Do you exhibit at conferences? If so, let the conference attendees touch your product so they can physically experience the product features. If this type of in-person exchange isn’t possible, think of how you can demo your product and use the web to relay this in-person sensory concept.

7. Logical-Mathematical Learners

Using mathematics to describe a concept allows this group of learners to effectively learn new information.

Graphs and data can really bring it home for some learners, as they are both visual and applicable. One of my favorite presenters is Hans Rosling who brings statistics to life!

As I said earlier, the more learning methodologies that a learning program includes, the more the trainee will remember. Why? Whether they realize it or not, people have preferred learning styles. Think about it; when you have to learn something new, do you prefer to hear it, read it or touch it physically? Do you naturally make up songs about things? Do you see the patterns in something new? Or do you learn best when you can discuss it with someone?

Whatever your answer, that’s your preferred learning style; most people have two to three preferred styles. So if a training program offers one or two of your preferred learning styles, you’ll likely remember the content better. If a training program incorporates six to seven learning style approaches, then the chance of everyone in the class retaining the knowledge increases even more.

In the classic face-to-face, live, organizational training, the course participants sit for 3-6 hours, listening to the ‘teacher’. Some classes include videos, role-plays, interactive theater or games to increase retention. However, it’s difficult to do this on a regular basis. Technology makes it much easier.

If I create an online course, I can easily add in video links, podcast links and simulation games, which covers two learning styles. Then I add PDFs of white papers that explain the patterns and academic context, covering another learning styles. I can also add in real-time ‘Journals’ allowing participants to post their homework for the rest of the course to see, which then allows others to comment and start an online conversation, covering another learning style. Finally, to ensure group dynamics stay strong, I could create group phone calls or some face-to-face sessions, covering more learning styles.

So you can see that it makes sense why the DOE found higher retention with online learning. In my next post I’ll talk more about the relationship between online learning and the seven learning styles.

Let’s share experiences. Leave a comment below, send me an email, or find me on Twitter.

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Nine Unconventional Ways Freelancers Landed Gigs

According to a recent study by Upwork and the Freelancers Union, the most common places for freelancers to pick up work are friends and family (36%), professional contacts (35%), and online job platforms (29%) like Upwork, Freelancer.com, Guru, and even Craigslist.

This breakdown spells trouble for some. American workers looking for projects on online marketplaces, for instance, are often competing with workers who live in countries where the dollar is strong. That means many foreign workers can accept far lower rates. If you can hire someone to transcribe an interview for $3 an hour, you aren’t giving that contract to a freelancer charging $15.

So where else can freelancers find work? Just ask these ten people, who picked up gigs in some unexpected places.

1. TAP YOUR DATING LIFE

Joy Yap found freelance work by unintentionally mixing business with pleasure. She went on a Tinder date with an entrepreneur who was just about to launch a company.

They didn’t hit it off romantically, Yap recalls. But, remembering her line of work, the entrepreneur reached out a couple months later with an offer to do some freelance marketing for his startup. “I agreed!” she says. “I’ve been doing freelance work for him off and on for about a year now, and saw the company grow from inception into a million dollar company today.”

Anyone who’s used an app like Tinder knows that modern dating often involves a little harmless cyber-stalking to gather extra intel on the person you’ve just met or are planning to meet. “One funny way I got a client on Fiverr,” says Alex Genadinik, referring to the gig marketplace, “was from a girl I was dating about a year ago. Early on during our dating, she and her friends decided to Google my name, which is very unique, and my Fiverr profile was one of the things that came up in their search.”

The woman and her friends shared Genadinik’s Fiverr profile with someone they knew who was looking for his line of freelance work, and the two ended up striking a deal. “All along I thought he was just a regular client that randomly found me on the internet,” says Genadinik. It was only months later that the woman let him know she’d played professional matchmaker. “[It] was pretty embarrassing for me because everyone was clued in except me,” Genadinik says, but hey—he got the work.

2. ADVERTISE IN REAL TIME

If you’re a freelancer, chances are you’ve sat at coffee shops with your nose in your laptop. So why not let passersby know exactly what you’re doing and that you’re available for hire?

Shayla Price says she landed a gig by creating and placing a makeshift placard saying “freelance writer” in front of her computer while working at Starbucks and other public places. Price says she’s received a few inquiries every time she whips out the placard.

3. EMAIL THE CEO DIRECTLY

“I’ve been obsessed with a large, multinational hair care brand for many years now,” says Termeh Mazhari, “so when I became a freelancer, I decided to just email the CEO directly.”

Going straight to the source may sound like a waste of time—execs usually aren’t the ones hiring contractors. But in Mazhari’s case, it paid off. “I told her about myself and the value I could bring to the company, and to my great surprise her assistant wrote me back and arranged a meeting with the CEO at their posh Manhattan office!”

What’s more, Mazhari landed more than just a tiny one-off project this way. “I ended up getting a year-long consulting gig with the brand, even though they already had a large internal PR team as well as multiple external agencies working with them.”

4. HUSTLE FOR FACEBOOK SHOUT-OUTS

After Stephanie Moore got laid off, she decided freelance full time and turned to Facebook to market her services.

“It started with one client . . . that I met through Facebook. She was very popular with a national brand,” Moore recalls, so she decided to attend one of the client’s networking events. There, Moore told her she wanted to “shift my focus from marketing and design to PR,” and the client “agreed to be my guinea pig.”

Their bargain went like this: “After each big accomplishment,” Moore says, “she would shout me out on Facebook as her publicist. Every time she tagged me, there was a guaranteed client on the way. All of her friends and potential clients began to reach out and ask for press releases, designs, etc. The more work I did, the more tagging I would get.” By tapping into one happy client with the influence to amplify Moore’s work, offers began piling up. “People would post my designs tagging me in the post, almost bragging that Stephanie Moore did it.”

Like another “solopreneur” who recently shared her method with Fast Company, Moore never thought Facebook could drive so much of her business—95% of which she now estimates comes from the social network.

5. OWN YOUR OUT-OF-THE-BOX THINKING

If you want to freelance, you have to be willing to share your ideas, even if you’re not sure they will be well received. Don’t wait for the perfect, full-proof pitch to go out and get your gig.

Just look at Chris Post. He held steadfast to his out-of-the-box thinking when he was building his freelance business. He says,

“At the time, just about every local property management company was trying to hold onto and gain tenants by offering them one or more months of free rent.

I had previously worked as a commercial real estate agent, and made a pitch to a property management company I was friendly with from that time: Instead of offering free rent to tenants, offer marketing assistance in the form of a free website in exchange for signing a year lease. They would spend less paying me to build a website than they would lose by deducting a month’s worth of rent.”

Post’s freelance career has now become a full-blown web development and marketing company called Post Modern Marketing.

6. NETWORK ON INSTAGRAM

Mallory Musante is one of the co-founders of Bold & Pop, a collective of social media, branding and web design freelancers. While they mainly find new clients from referrals, they occasionally use freelancing sites to find work. In this case, they sent a proposal to a client, researched the company a little further, and decided to follow all of their social media accounts. Musante never heard back so assumed the company had gone with another freelancer.

But wait—Instagram to the rescue. She says, “we were surprised when we received an email through our website requesting more information on our social media marketing services. While they didn’t remember us submitting a proposal on the freelancing site, we were able to catch their eye on Instagram by occasionally networking with them.”

7. PARTICIPATE IN YOUR COMMUNITY

Abandoning the traditional workplace can feel isolating, participating in your local community can be a remedy, as well as a fantastic place to drum up freelance work. Photographer Tammy Lamoureux shares a great example of community involvement leading to jobs.

“Wanting to get more product photography gigs, we started hitting up our local craft fairs and farmer’s markets.  We get a room full of small businesses who will most likely need professional photos of their merchandise at some point or another.  So, go around from booth to booth and chat with the vendors. Take some photos of their products and make sure to get their contact info so you can send them the shots later.  They will appreciate the free photos, and you’ll be top of mind the next time they are in need of some product photos. We did this at one craft fair, and ended up with five new clients for about 2 hours worth of work.”

8. GO WITH YOUR GUT

Kelly Boyer Sagert’s usually picks freelance work based on the right amount of income attached to it. But sometimes, she decides to go with a gut feeling to see what happens. She explains how one of those gut-driven exceptions landed her unexpectedly great work:

“A few years ago, a nonprofit agency asked me to take their research about the first woman to solo hike the Appalachian Trail and turn it into an ebook. I did — and then they asked for it to also be written as a first person storytelling performance, so I did. Concurrently, the agency was having some of their video footage turned into a mini-documentary and discovered that they couldn’t get the grant funding they wanted/needed unless a play was written on the subject. So, I wrote a play script and we talked to a theater that had produced some of my work in the past, and they put on the play. So, the funding was secured, the documentary was created and, since my play was used as the foundation, I got writing credits — and the documentary was picked up by PBS: Trail Magic: the Grandma Gatewood Story.”

9. TELL PROSPECTS WHAT THEIR COMPETITORS ARE UP TO

If one company is looking for services, then their competitors are probably looking, too—or will want to as soon as they learn of it.

“I had one company contact me for a strategic marketing plan for the upcoming year,” recalls freelancer Stephen Twomey. He saw that as not just one potential opportunity but several. “I knew they were looking at other consultants as well.”

“So, since I knew company A was looking for something, I contacted companies B, C, [and] D and mentioned that one of their main competitors was looking for strategic marketing consulting”—without mentioning which one. Twomey says “Company A ended up going with a different [contractor], but company C actually bought a consulting package.”

The services you offer may not belong in a creative field, but it still often takes ingenuity to land those gigs in the first place. For just about every freelancer, thinking outside the box can really pay off.

Have you landed freelance gigs in an unusual way? Share your story in the comments below, on Twitter, or send me an email.

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Diversity and Inclusion: A Simple Break Down

As someone who worked with different Kenyan tribes when running hotels and safaris, diversity and inclusion is a topic that is important to me.

And it should be important to you too. Why? Because employee diversity has measurable, positive effects on organizational success. Plus, on a macro level, due to the global political environment, employees are personally concerned with diversity and inclusion (D&I) issues (including gender pay equity) and want their employers to offer perspective on those issues. In this way, D&I now touches employee engagement, human rights and social justice.

Today I want to break down D&I simply, for those who see diversity and inclusion as an insurmountable challenge to tackle. We’ll start with outlining how D&I benefits company performance, including information which can be used to urge leaders to take D&I initiatives more seriously. Then, I’ll discuss how to foster inclusion at work—because what’s the point of a diverse workforce if employees don’t feel included in company culture, decision-making and upward mobility? Lastly, I’ll review some challenges that diversity brings to company culture and performance.

Four Ways Diversity Benefits Company Performance

Here are four examples of the measurable, positive effects that employee diversity has on organizational success:

1. Women increase equity, sales and ROI

Catalyst took a look at Fortune 500 companies with women on their board of directors and found that these which co? those that focus on D&I? companies had a higher return on equity by at least 53%, were superior in sales by at least 42%, and had a higher ROI, to the tune of 66%. Those are not small numbers.

2. Diverse top teams = top financial performers

McKinsey quarterly reported that between 2008 and 2010, companies with more diverse top teams were also top financial performers.

3. Diversity and inclusion identified as key driver of innovation

When 321 executives at large global enterprises ($500 million plus in annual revenues) were surveyed for the Fostering Innovation Through a Diverse Workforce study, diversity and inclusion were identified as the key driver of not only internal innovation, but also business growth.

4. Diverse groups are superior problem solvers

Groups of diverse problem solvers outperformed groups of high-ability problem solvers, according to a study by Lu Hong and Scott E. Page.

Creating a diverse staff and culture is only the first step. It doesn’t do much good without inclusion, which takes effort. Because what’s the point of a room full of diverse thinkers when no one feels empowered to share their thoughts? Here are three tips to foster a sense of inclusion amongst a diverse workforce:

How Managers Foster A Sense Of Inclusion Among A Diverse Workforce

1. Coach People To Listen More and Interrupt Less

Listening is a key element of inclusion, and while it sounds simple, it actually requires practice and intention. Leaders and managers need to coach people to listen more and interrupt less. They need to listen with their whole selves—taking into account the words, body language and energy of the communicator.

2. Encourage Equal Stage Time in All Meetings

We’ve all been in meetings that were dominated by the person with the loudest voice. And unfortunately, the “squeaky wheel” strategy does sometimes garner results in the business world. This is the opposite of inclusion. Encourage meetings where all speak up equally. This will take some careful management at first, but with time the culture of the meetings will change, and more voices will be heard.

3. Work On Your Own Bias

Our own bias can greatly influence decision-making, often preventing inclusion unconsciously. Here are six quick tips for working on our own biases.

• Start by taking the IAT test to identify biases you have that yet may be unaware of: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html
• Watch your language. Biased language is ingrained in how we speak, but can exclude diverse employees. For example, “Okay you guys, let’s get down to work,” does not include female members of the team.
• Identify particular elements in company processes that function as entry points for bias. For example, is your hiring committee all male? People tend to be drawn to others like themselves. If you identify your hiring committee as largely dominated by one gender or ethnicity, change it up.
• Include positive images of diverse groups in the workplace such as posters, newsletters, videos, reports and podcasts. This helps our brains make positive associations with groups we may otherwise be unconsciously biased toward.
• Visualize a positive interaction with toward with those you have a bias against. Visualization is powerful and can actually alter the brain.
• Encourage workers to call out bias and hold each other accountable. Yes, that means calling out leaders too.
  
  

The Challenges Diversity Brings To Company Performance Or Company Culture

Diversity increases different ways of seeing the world and how people work. For example, how a person from the U.S. views time versus how a person from China views time may be drastically different. Learning the cultural differences between team members strengthens team understanding.

In addition, the complexity of ideas increases with more diverse teams. This is more difficult to manage than homogenous ideas, which require less debate to come to agreement and make decisions. While diversity breeds innovation, it can also present a challenge and requires careful communication skills.

Welcoming diversity and inclusion into your organization is critical. I urge all leaders to take an honest look at where diversity and inclusion stands in their organization, and make it a strategic priority.

Share your questions about diversity and inclusion in the comment section below, via email, or on Twitter. Myself or members of my community will do our best to answer!

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