eLearningIndustry_Logo
Sign In
  • Join Newsletter
  • eBooks
  • Webinars
  • Find Top LMS Software
  • Find Top Authoring Tools
  • Find Top Content Providers
  • Advertise
  • Articles
    All Articles Publish an Article Learning Management Systems Authoring Tools Trends Design and Development Instructional Design Best Practices Free Resources
  • Directory
    Pick The Right eLearning Partner Content Providers Learning Management Systems Free LMS Consulting Review an LMS Promote Your LMS Authoring Tools Review an Authoring Tool Promote Your Authoring Tool Web Conferencing Software Project Management Software Course Marketplaces Language Providers Translation Providers Voice Actors Top eLearning Companies Registration
  • Events
    Webinars Promote Your Event All Events Conferences Congresses Events Seminars Symposiums Workshops Promoting Your Event Guide Free eBook
  • Press Releases
    Promote Your Press Release Press Releases Archive Press Release Guidelines Press Releases Guide Free eBook
  • Jobs
    Find Jobs Promote Your Job
  • Post Here

How can we help you?

Loading...
Oups. Something Has Gone Terribly Wrong. Please Try Later

Sign In

By signing in with LinkedIn, you're agreeing to create an account at elearningindustry.com and accept our terms of use and privacy policy.
Learn more about how we use LinkedIn.

How we use LinkedIn

We use LinkedIn to ensure that our users are real professionals who contribute and share reliable content.

When you sign in with LinkedIn, you are granting elearningindustry.com access to your LinkedIn account, which is used to authenticate you without you having to enter a different user name and password. We also use this access to retrieve the following information:

  • Your full name.
  • Your primary email address.

You can revoke this access at any time through your LinkedIn account.

Sign In with LinkedIn

Already have an account? Login here
  1. Home
  2. eLearning Design and Development
  3. 4 Tips For Content Chunking In e-Learning
Photo of Christie Wroten
By Christie Wroten
January 9, 2014
2 minutes to read
Comments
eLearning Design and Development

4 Tips For Content Chunking In e-Learning

If your learners aren’t performing as well on their post-training evaluations as you’d hoped, you may want to try an e-Learning development technique to help them remember - content chunking.
4 Tips For Content Chunking In e-Learning

Maybe you’ve never heard this term, or you’ve heard it mentioned and wondered exactly how it works, where it came from and how to apply it to your e-Learning development. If so, don’t worry! This post should answer many of your questions about the content chunking technique.

What is content chunking?

Content chunking is the strategy of breaking up content into shorter, bite-size pieces that are more manageable and easier to remember. This is a great technique for designing successful online training courses.

What’s the story behind content chunking?

The chunk concept was created by the Harvard psychologist George A. Miller in 1956. Miller said that short-term memory could only hold 5-9 chunks of information. Experts since then have different opinions on the exact number of chunks a person can remember, but the main concept is what’s important—people have a limited capacity in their short-term memory. To find out more about how our brains work and how that effects your e-Learning development, read this interesting blog post: 5 Strategies for Designing Brain-Friendly e-Learning Courses.

Check out these 4 tips to help you successfully use the content chunking technique

  1. Prioritize the information
    Determine the content hierarchy of the course by choosing the main points, primary supporting materials or visuals and then secondary supporting materials. In addition, you’ll need to think about logical progression of content, so your course builds on the information that your learners are covering, rather than skipping around.
  2. Design for your learners’ working memory
    The phrase “less is more” is helpful when you’re accommodating actual working memory. If you present your learners with too much information at once, they won’t remember it. Only include relevant and carefully chosen content. Visuals are a good way to lessen the demands of working memory. If you still think your course isn’t going to grab your learners’ attention, check out these tips for getting your learners interested without overloading them with information: 5 Ways to Grab Your Learners’ Attention.
  3. Go screen-by-screen
    Plan what will be on each screen before you start designing. Each new topic, or chunk of information, should be on a new screen to keep your course organized and properly chunked. If you do this at the very beginning, try storyboarding to plan ahead. This blog has some helpful information and resources on storyboarding: Thursday’s Trending e-Learning Topic: Storyboarding.
  4. Take advantage of bullets and numbered lists
    If you’re having trouble organizing your chunks of content, bullets and numbered lists are easy ways to present your information clearly. People often don’t read every single word and skim content instead. Organizing content into lists creates a concise presentation, and your learners will still take in the content even if they skim.

Try the content chunking strategy during development, and see how it benefits your learners! For more ways to make your online training course more engaging, read the helpful tips in this blog post: How to Make Online Compliance Training More FUN.

Content Chunking eLearning Design Tips eLearning Development Best Practices Instructional Design Tips
  • Write or read Comments
Close
Subscribe to the newsletter Subscribe to the newsletter
eLearningIndustry_Logo
The best collection of eLearning articles, eLearning concepts, eLearning software, and eLearning resources.
  • Articles

    • Post Here
    • Top eLearning Authors
    • How To Publish An eLearning Article
    • How to View your Stats
    • Archive
  • Press Releases

    • Promote Your Press Release
    • Press Releases Guide eBook
    • How To Post A Press Release
    • Guidelines
    • Archive
  • Events

    • Promote Your Event
    • Promoting Your Event eBook
    • How To Post An Event
    • Archive
  • Directory

    • Get Listed
    • Top LMS Software
    • Free LMS Consulting
    • Top Authoring Tools
    • Top eLearning Content Providers
    • How to Create a Business Listing
    • How to Create a Product Listing
  • Jobs

    • Promote Your Job
    • How To Post And Manage A Job Listing
    • Job Openings
    • About
    • Terms & Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Contact
    • Support
    • Advertise
  • French flag ELEARNING INDUSTRY IN FRENCH
© 2011–2019 eLearning Industry.