1. Revitalizing Dry Content:
ALesson In Engagement
with Tim Buteyn,
President, ThinkingKap Learning Solutions Inc.
Tara Dwyer, Webinar Coordinator
eLearning Learning
Tim Buteyn, President
ThinkingKap Learning Solutions Inc.
April 12th, 2023
9:30am PDT, 12:30pm EDT, 5:30pm BST
featuring
moderated by

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4. Tim Buteyn
President, ThinkingKap Learning Solutions Inc.

5. REVITALIZING
A LESSON IN
ENGAGEMENT

6. www.ThinkingKapLearning.com

7. What We’ll do Today
LEARN strategies for motivating learners,
even when you’re given boring content.
UNDERSTAND what makes a course
boring, and what you can do to capture
learners’ attention and bring your courses
to life.
DISCOVER techniques that convert a
course from dry and boring to relevant and
engaging.
EXPERIENCE examples of motivating
course techniques across a spectrum of
dry topics.

8. Revitalizing Your Content
WHAT MAKES
CONTENT DRY AND
BORING?

9. What are some of the dry and
boring topics that you had to
create eLearning courses on?
What do you think…

10. What Makes eLearning Boring?
• Too few or confusing visual elements
• Robotic or monotone narration
• Content not relevant
• Repetitive presentation methods
• Too easy

11. What techniques can you use to
capture learners’ attention and
bring your courses to life?
• Remember that looks matter!
• Humanize your course
• Diversify learning styles
• Make it relevant
• Provide adequate challenges

12. LOOKS MATTER
Revitalizing Your Content

13. Manage First Impressions - Example

14. The Importance Of Design
• Manage First Impressions
• Organization Counts
• Use Interesting and Creative Visuals

15. Manage First Impressions
• Learners’ first impression is visual, so
make it count!
• Disorganized or unprofessional visuals
undermine credibility.
• Good looking courses garner respect and
help with engagement.

16. Manage First Impressions - Example

17. Visual Organization Counts
It’s not just about the aesthetics!
Can learners pick out the key points?
Yes!
Can they determine how facts and concept
relate to one another?
Do they know where to focus first?

18. Visual Organization Counts
• Placement and color
How information is presented on the page to
make it clear and easy to understand
Visual Design / Visual Organization

19. Visual Organization Counts
Move learners through materials more easily
Increased learner satisfaction and retention
Show relationships between concepts
Emphasize most important information

20. Good Visual Organization
• Keep it simple
• Use white space
• Follow a visual hierarchy
• Emphasize important information
• Use presentation methods that
support better comprehension

21. Organization Counts - Example

22. Use Interesting And Creative Visuals
• Align visual and vocal tone
• Ensure images are relevant to content
• Evoke an emotional connection to content

23. Interesting And Creative Visuals - Example
vs

24. Interesting And Creative Visuals - Example
vs

25. Looks Matter! Wrap-Up
• What your course looks like
matters.
• Professional-looking, well-
organized courses increase
engagement.

26. Revitalizing Your Content
HUMANIZE YOUR
COURSE

27. People/Social Interaction VS Anywhere/Anytime
Poorly executed eLearning can be robotic
Humanize eLearning
• Use Casual, Approachable
Language
• Voice Matters
• Leverage Emotion
Make a conscious effort to humanize our
courses

28. Use Casual, Approachable Language
• Write and narrate your courses the way
people speak in day-to-day life.
• If you aren’t writing the way people are
used to hearing, you’re losing your
engagement.
What to avoid…
• Text to speech
• Unnatural speech patterns

29. Voice Matters
• Courses with narration perform better
• Avoid text-to-speech or DIY narration
• Spring for a professional
There’s more to great narration than a nice
voice!

30. Voice Matters - Example
You should now be familiar with some of the
stigmatizing attitudes and misconceptions associated
with substance use disorder and medications for opioid
use disorder, as well as the truth behind the myths.
“
”

31. Leverage Emotion
Why don’t people use this technique in
training?
• Emotional reactions hook a learner’s
attention, resulting in better retention.
Emotional connections…
• Tie all of us together
• Add that human element to your courses
• Help create strong mental connections
• Impact with learner recall

32. Leverage Emotion - Example

33. Leverage Emotion - Example
What are some ways you’ve used emotion?

34. Humanize Your Course Wrap-Up
• Use everyday language
• Make sure narrator sounds clear
and approachable.
• Leverage emotion to create
mental connections that aid
retention.

35. DIVERSIFY
LEARNING STYLES
Revitalizing Your Content

36. Matching Learning Styles Debate
There are different ways of
presenting information…
And different ways that people
process information…
Multiple studies show matching learning
styles provides no benefit

37. Mixing it up makes for a more
interesting and engaging course…
• Visual
• Auditory
• Kinesthetic
Diversify is Key!

38. Diversity Is Key – Visual Example

39. Diversity Is Key – Auditory
Instructional techniques that employ
auditory learning …
• Lecture
• Audio and video clips
• Small group or classroom
discussions
It’s these subtleties that make auditory
learning memorable

40. Diversity Is Key – Kinesthetic Example

41. Diversify Learning Styles Wrap-Up

42. Revitalizing Your Content
RELEVANCY IS
CRITICAL

43. • Connect Content to Behaviors
• Add Realistic Activities
• Tailor the Learning Experience
How To Make Your Content Relevant
“Shouldn’t it be obvious how the
training relates to the learner?
If it wasn’t relevant, we wouldn’t be
asking them to take the training.”

44. Connect Content to Behaviors
Don’t just focus on the information…
…focus on the behaviors you want
to change.
• What do you want them to do with
the information?
• How should it shape their decisions
or actions?

45. Connect Content to Behaviors - Example

46. Add Realistic Activities
• Help learners see how content applies
to their work
• Gives learners a safe place to
practice
Make sure activities and examples
aren’t specific only to a small subset
of your audience.

47. Realistic Activities - Example

48. Tailor the Learning Experience
Interview learners to determine
content/activities…
• If content only applies to some
• To leverage role-specific scenarios
Use a pretest/test-out strategy…
• To focus learning time where it’s needed
• To shorten training time

49. Tailor the Learning Experience - Example

50. Relevancy is Critical Wrap-Up
• Demonstrate how the content
impacts decisions actions
• Give learners the opportunity to
practice application using
realistic and relevant activities
• Tailor the learning experience
to make it more relevant

51. Revitalizing Your Content
PROVIDE ADEQUATE
CHALLENGE

52. • Don’t Make it Too Easy
• Failure Doesn’t Impede Success
• Balance Hard and Fair
• Provide Feedback
How to Adequately Challenge Learners
Failure is capable of teaching people in ways
success cannot

53. Too Easy Equals Boring
Success does not equal motivation,
overcoming challenges does!
• Incorrect answer choices should be realistic.
• Avoid fake or “humorous” options.

54. Failure Doesn’t Impede Success
• Don’t be afraid to let learners fail.
• The right kind of failure can be a
successful motivator.
• In life, we learn more from our
failures than our successes.

55. Failure Doesn’t Impede Success - Example

56. Balance Hard and Fair
Challenging is good…
…trick questions are unfair.
Determine the right level of
challenge…
• What kinds of challenges do they
face?
• What level of complexity is required?
• Does it align with course objectives?
• Does align with the learners’ job
requirements?

57. Failure Doesn’t Impede Success - Example

58. Feedback
Feedback is critical…
Correct and incorrect responses are teaching
opportunities!
Explain why certain answers are right…
…and why others are wrong

59. Tailor Feedback to Question Type
One Attempt
Correct feedback explains why
answer is right
Incorrect feedback reveals
right answer and explains why
answer is wrong
Multiple Attempts
Correct feedback explains why
answer is right
Incorrect feedback explains
why answer is wrong and hints
at right answer

60. Provide Adequate Challenge
Wrap-Up
• Too easy = boring
• Find the right level of challenge
• Allow learners to fail, but provide
feedback

61. Revitalize Your Content
SUMMARY

63. eBook
Download
www.ThinkingKapLearning.com/create-
engaging-elearning/

64. /in/timbuteyn/
President
ThinkingKap Learning Solutions, Inc.
Tim Buteyn
thinkingkaplearning.com
Tara Dwyer
Webinar Coordinator
eLearning Learning
/in/dwyertara/
elearninglearning.com
Q&A
eBook Download
www.ThinkingKapLearning.com/create-
engaging-elearning/