Training materials

If you want your health research to impact practitioners or patients, then training materials will play an important role in executing your KT strategy.

A simple approach to creating learning materials

Five principles for creating learning that sticks

Whether you're designing materials for classroom-based or online learning, these basic principles will serve you well.

#1. Meet your learners where they are

There's no sense creating materials with an “ideal” learner in mind. Be realistic about the attitudes and skills your real audience brings to the learning experience. For example:

• Most learners are rushed. Even keeners want to get through training as swiftly as possible so they can get down to applying what they've learned.
• Few people care about theory. Save your theoretical musings for conference presentations and focus instead on straightforward, practical content. In the so-called “real world,” most learners love tips they can put to use right away.
• Many of us are scared to try new things. Learning can be scary, especially for people who have had negative experiences in the educational system. Acknowledge that, and encourage your audience along their learning journey.

#2. Map a clear learning path 

The internet makes it easy to access information, but hard to organize it and make sense of it. Your chief task as a learning designer is to structure content so it's easy to access and remember. The better organized your content is, the more likely your learners will remember it. 

Here are a few tips to help you structure your learning materials:

•  Provide an overall description of the training. Let learners know what they'll achieve, the topics they'll cover, and the method the training will follow.
• Provide learning outcomes. Articulate the practical takeaways learners will get from the training. What will they be able to DO once they've completed it?
• Break content into small sections, with descriptive headings. Think bite-sized bits of information and baby steps.
• Use strategic repetition. Repeat key words and themes. At the beginning of a section, give an overview, and at the end, provide a recap. 

#3. Make your content memorable

• Use the power of stories. Stories grab attention and evoke an emotional response, embedding themselves in our memory.
• Play with mnemonics. Help learners remember processes, methods, or key points by turning them into acronyms or rhymes.
• Group points into clusters of five or fewer items. More than that, and you'll overload your learner's mental circuits. 
• Incorporate visuals. We remember content best when it includes both text and visuals. 

#4. Provide examples and opportunities to practice

To internalize concepts, learners need opportunities to practice applying them and to learn through that practice. Feedback is essential.

#5. Support implementation

If you want learners to apply the training, then give them the means to do that. Invest less of your time in creating content and more of your time inventing tools.

Curated resources

• Design for the Way People Learn by Julie Dirksen. A short, straightforward primer on instructional design that models the principles it preaches. Light-hearted and easy to follow but jam-packed with solid advice.
• Mike Taylor's website and newsletter. Mike's weekly newsletter offers a treasure trove of resources on learning design and technology.
• My fool-proof process for taking live training online (Clarity Studio blog)

Downloadable tool

Checklist for Training Materials

Try this!

Imagine an end user of your research, someone who could put your research into practice in a setting outside the university.

What simple task could your research enable them to do more effectively or efficiently? Create training materials to facilitate that single, simple application of your research.