How To Create Immersive Learning: 4 Tips And An Example
These 4 tips will help you create content that hooks your learner.
1. Get Emotional
First things first, your content needs to engage with your learner on a human level, so try to uncover the people and emotions at the centre of your topic.
For time management training, you could share the story of how a busy, overworked parent restructured their day to prioritize spending quality time with their child. For diversity and inclusion training, tell your learner about how an employee from a minority ethnic background felt ignored by their manager. Your learners are more likely to engage with your content if they can identify a human element.
Download this free Capture Needs Template to learn more about how to understand your audience.
2. Don’t Tell, Show
Instead of just listing events to the learner, describe a scene and let the learner derive their own meaning. The learner will have to engage with your content to draw their conclusions. To make it clear, compare the two examples below:
Example 1
"I got an A in my exam, Dad!" Jack exclaimed, as he burst through the front door, dropping his school bag on the floor and skidding into the kitchen. Jack’s dad didn’t look up from the potatoes he was slicing. After a minute or two with no answer, Jack quietly retreated to his bedroom.
Example 2
Jack couldn’t wait to tell his family about his exam result. He rushed home from school to let his dad know. Jack dad showed little interest in his son’s news; not even looking up from the potatoes he was slicing. Jack left the room feeling deflated and disappointed.
In example 1, it’s never explicitly stated that Jack feels disappointed but his feelings are clear to the reader through the use of immersive storytelling.
3. Enable Participation
Encourage engagement by inviting your learners to play a role of their own within your story.
One way to do this is by asking your learner what they would do when confronted with the situation you’ve described.
The purpose is to allow the learner to make a choice so you can show them the consequence. To do this, give your learner different options, but make sure they all feel viable so as not to interrupt your story’s flow.
4. Give Context
Your learners can learn from the choices of others, as well as from their own. Share insight by incorporating different perspectives within your story or by presenting a summary of findings at the end. Elucidat's social polling tool can be really useful for this.
Immersive Learning Example: The Open University’s "A Support Net"
See an example of how to give context at the end of your story in this immersive learning example from the Open University.
The example, called "A Support Net" is an immersive branching video created in collaboration with The Open University [1] and Tilt [2]. The combination of emotive video and Elucidat's streamlined interactions creates an engaging learning experience.
Don’t be put off by the large budget behind "A Support Net". Instead, focus on how each of the 4 tips are covered within the video.
Inspiration For Immersive Learning
If you’re still unsure about how to use immersive learning, you might find some inspiration from the following suggestions:
- Health and Safety Training.
Share stories of shocking (but possible) near-death experiences. Imagining the situation for themselves is likely to result in preventative behaviour in the future. - Code of Conduct Training.
People are always intrigued by plots that are "based on a true story", so tell the tale of real-life experiences. Don’t forget to anonymize any names and places to protect identities. - Financial Policy Training.
Make your learner the protagonist of your examples. People are more likely to care about Data Security if they believe they could be the victim of fraud.
Want to start creating immersive eLearning? Take Elucidat’s authoring platform for a test drive.
References
