The Power of Sticky Learning: Beating the Post-Training Knowledge Drop

As a facilitator, I dedicate considerable time to researching articles, watching webinars, and digging up the latest tips and techniques to share in my classes. With so much information to absorb, it’s easy to forget what I’ve learned. This phenomenon can be attributed to the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, which suggests that, regardless of how inspired and confident a learner feels after training, they can forget up to 75% of their newly acquired knowledge within just six days without reinforcement.

Evidence-based research in how we learn best and make that learning stick points to 4 key areas that we believe are keys to long term knowledge retention:

1. Spaced Repetition
2. Interleaving
3. Active Recall Testing
4. Variety

We also design our classes with the 4 Cs framework (from Training from The Back of the Room) which helps ensure that training is learner-focused and encourages long-term retention through active engagement:

1. Connections
2. Concepts
3. Concrete Practice
4. Conclusions

Knowing that we can’t hold your hand after a training course and that life just gets busy, we have a heap of tricks up our sleeves to help make training memorable and fun.

Most of the techniques we use are based on neuroscience and our own experience with what works and what doesn’t.

Let’s delve into our 4 areas of optimal learning approaches combined with the 4 Cs framework of interactive and learner centric course design.

Spaced Repetition

During a training session I make sure I ‘join the dots’ of content we have covered piece by piece and layer upon layer – we build Connections to the content and to the learners’ prior experience and to the other learners.

This is such a win-win situation, and it works brilliantly – those with experience are naturally telling stories to the novices.  I illustrate with stories from my experience so that the Concept really takes hold – it is a shared learning and understanding of content that we cover from multiple lenses and different domains and diverse thinking styles and everyone takes part.

Not only do we make use of spacing this learning out during our sessions, but we leverage another great learning strategy throughout our classes – Social (Peer to Peer) Learning.

Our learners are encouraged to colourfully draw, illustrate, use imagery (metaphors, analogies, stories) and write their thoughts down to bring key concepts to life. They are essentially learning from one another rather than just from the facilitator.

When learners are writing rather than reading, talking rather than listening, using imagery rather than words they are more likely to be engaged and retain what’s in front of them.

Often the concepts can be quite broad and complex – information that is typically difficult to explain. As a facilitator I know all too well that explaining a concept can be challenging when you don't fully grasp it, so the process of simplifying and understanding it to teach a peer is an effective way to reinforce your own learning as well as the recipients.

Much of this social learning is done in smaller breakout groups that are less intimidating than a larger forum.

As the learner makes connections with the content and builds their knowledge, I like to ask them how a topic relates to their world and experience. It is a powerful technique that really deepens their understanding of the concepts.

Interleaving

Rather than study one complete topic in a separate block we should study different topics together. If you are studying French for example and the topic is food related, then mix that topic with a topic on sport to get a better learning outcome.

It’s important not to make the learning too one-dimensional – in other words covering one topic, like the Agile values and principles and then never referring to that again as if it’s a stand-alone component. As we progress deeper through our content then we can help the learners connect with how everything relates to the Agile values and principles. We will, for example, explore how to use an idea canvas, basing it on a relatable case study and get the learners to work in teams to complete it. Not only are they learning about the canvas but at the same time they are self-organising, collaborating, making decisions, solving problems, raising risks and having heaps of fun all at the same time. I’m frequently told that time has just flown by.

While the teams complete the idea canvas they are consolidating their learning via Concrete Practice – making a fuzzy concept more real and relatable. The interleaving of topics of agile values and principles now becomes real because the learners are actively engaged and interacting in an agile way.

Active Recall Testing

Not only do we leverage peer to peer teaching we also make sure they can actively recall what they are learning via the spaced repetition mentioned above. 

If the content is exam-based then I love to quiz people throughout the class – I prepare heaps of practice exam questions and test all the way through the class and also have sample exam questions for learners to practice with after a class.

I make sure they have plenty of time to study but not only that they have indefinite time to access the virtual whiteboard which is full of resources and the outcome of all their work and exercises (their concrete practice). Learners are constantly debriefed and asked for their insights, observations and thoughts which is an opportunity for any gaps in their knowledge or any aha moments to be surfaced (conclusions)

Variety

We know the brain is stimulated by novelty – “different trumps same” as the colourful cheat sheet on my wall tells me. We supply Cheat sheets and quick reference guides that can be used long after the class has ended.

We also provide templates that can be used immediately back at work – we develop them during the class through concrete practice and conclusions and the reflection helps students make connections back to their own context which solidifies the concepts we are exploring and then we hand them back to the student to design back at their work. Above all we make sure there is a simple mix of variety throughout – a short video, a fun exercise, a team oriented practical, an instructor led exploration – to make the day fly by and the knowledge memorable. The brain naturally ignores the routine and boring but ignites through novelty and contrast, meaning and emotion.

Summary

In a nutshell we can’t be there with our learners after the training – we can however give them simple tools, templates, virtual whiteboards, quick reference guides and cheat sheets and techniques that they can incorporate into their own context.

We design our classes to be fun, interactive, and engaging, with everyone given an opportunity to contribute and learn using the latest in neuroscience to make learning really stick long after the class has ended.

Thanks to Toby Thompson, SkillsDG trainer and coach, for his insights and perspective. With a background in software testing Toby is well established in the landscape of lean, agile, and design thinking.