Advanced education programs such as certifications, professional development programs, specialized job training, and competency-based learning are significantly beneficial to every type of business and organization. These advanced education programs help employees to develop into leaders. They can increase their workplace productivity, become more knowledgeable in the industry, and provide an invaluable contribution to the business.
As an employer, you need to find the best learning management system (LMS) to provide these training material and certification programs to your employees. To pick the best LMS system for your company, you should consider these four important factors to consider.
1. Diverse Content Options
Everyone learns differently. Visual learners retain information best by seeing graphics, images, and texts. Auditory learners best understand presented information by listening and speaking to their teacher and peers. Written learners prefer reading and writing while kinaesthetic learners perform by physically performing a task or action.
It is essential to create courses using a combination of material such as text, images, presentation, reading, and action tasks to best engage every student. The best LMS software will support slide shows, documents, webinars, podcasts, newsfeed, and even chat integration.
A cheaper LMS may not include all of these interactive options. You may find that employees are not retaining information and your investment in the development of the material courses is lost. Before purchasing an LMS, you should ensure that it offers a wide range of diverse content delivery options.
2. Material Personalization
When you are developing a course, one of the basic steps is to present the material logically. A learning path is a term for providing a logical journey for learners. The best LMS system allows students to access different materials and take a variety of courses to prepare for new materials.
For example, if a student or employee wants to review the first chapter in a three-chapter test, they should be able to have access to the previous material. If you have designed a terminology set to help assist employees to understand the material, wouldn’t it be helpful for them to be able to click on the term in the reading and bring them to the definition? Material personalization is a key factor in choosing the best learning management system.
3. Knowledge Retention
The best way to test knowledge retention is through tests, exams, assignments, surveys, and polls. Well-designed assignments help to increase memory retention and assess participation. Before purchasing an LMS, you should investigate what type of knowledge retention tools it offers.
Do you need polls or do you prefer tests and quizzes? Do they offer practice quiz options at the end of each section of material? These tools are all interactive, which also helps kinaesthetic learners. You may have provided visual, auditory, and written learners with the proper material to retain knowledge, but knowledge retention tools help reach the kinaesthetic learners that you could not engage during the course.
Knowledge retention tools also help assess if the course materials are beneficial. If everyone is failing the quizzes, it is a sign that you should change the course material to help better engage the learners.
4. Reporting Tools
There are two types of LMS reporting tools. The first type of reporting tool is a learner-oriented dashboard. This dashboard is extremely beneficial. It shows learners how much of a course they have completed, how much of the course is left, and how well they are doing in the course.
The second type of LMS reporting tool is designed for the staff. Their dashboard will contain a much wider range of reports including how active members are, how well they are doing, options to monetize, staff and team updates, and how effectively the LMS is performing. These tools will help the staff to better develop future coursework and meet the needs of the members.
Published by Alison Lurie