How to design effective learning & development activities

Moving from Financial- or Business Controller to Finance Business Partner is a journey often requiring a change in mindset and toolset.

This change effort requires effective training activities - formal as well as on-the-job. The key in developing such effective training activities lie in an understanding of how adults learn . The AGES model provides some pointers on how to make learning stick:

? A: Attention - we need to devote our full attention

? G: Generation - we need generate our own insights

? E: Emotions - we need to get emotionally invested

? S: Spacing - we need to revisit learning content frequently

Attention

For learning to stick, it is essential to devote your full and undisturbed attention to material at hand. When your focus on a topic without distraction, the hippocampus, which is responsible for transferring information from short-term memory to long-term memory, begins to activate and releases the neurotransmitter dopamine. If the presented information is interesting and important enough, the hippocampus primes the memory/information for long-term memory storage.

Generation

By ensuring opportunities to generate ties between new information and existing concepts and experiences, learning becomes more effective. Specifically, adults need opportunities to tie new information to their personal role or job context. This can be achieved through blended learning journeys leveraging different formats (lecture, text, video, self-paced, and kinesthetic activities), thereby enhancing the learners' ability to tie information into current knowledge and use prior experience to learn new concepts.

Emotions

Positive emotions influence learning by affecting students’ attention and motivation. Positive emotions draw one’s attention towards the object of emotion and motivates us to keep exploring. Emotion also facilitates encoding and helps retrieval of information efficiently.?Mixing up content delivery techniques can evoke strong learner emotions and lead to lasting retention.

Spacing

Learning and development sessions that occur over day- or week-long sessions infrequently lead to long-term learning and retention. Training sessions that are packed with information in a short amount of time is like drinking from the fire hose, and on average, only 10% of what was delivered within a training session is retained 3 months later.1

Spacing refers to delivering material over time and allowing learners to revisit the material before adding to the information. Spacing information allows learners to encode the information by building resilient neural pathways. Revisiting the material over time strengthens the pathways. For optimal retention, learners should revisit the material at least 3 times after being first exposed to it.

Build effective L&D programs

At BusinessPartneringInstitute.org , we are expects in delivering learning and development activities for finance professionals. Specifically, we aid finance professionals on the journey from bean counter to business partner - from controller to choice facilitator and decision enabler. Reach out to learn how we can help your finance function build the skills needed to succeed in the future.

More information

• The cognitive science behind learning that resonates the AGES model
• Implementing AGES model for effective training delivery
• The adult learning theory