Collaborative Studying Technique: Info and Stats
The science behind a successful collaborative learning strategy
A recent study by researchers from the University of Washington found that active learning, powered by collaboration and interaction, has a positive impact on university students’ academic performance. Surprisingly, this study found that a lack of active learning can actually affect a student’s chances of academic success.
This analysis gives us two revolutionary findings:
- Active learning leads to increases in performance that would raise the grade point average by half a letter.
- Students taught through traditional lecture-based learning are 1.5 times more likely to drop out than students attending active learning courses.
This is an important conclusion for L&D leaders – especially given the current challenges in organizational learning. It confirms what we have been told all of our lives: actively participating in the learning process encourages learners to invest more and to retain the information more effectively. Not only does this have a huge impact on learning effectiveness, it also helps unlock collaborative learning strategies to increase employee retention and engagement.
eBook publication
How collaborative learning increases engagement rates to over 90%
From benefits to proven strategies, this guide has everything you need to start a successful collaborative learning program for your remote workers!
3 collaborative learning strategies used
Science has also proven that asking questions while studying significantly increases brain activity in both the learner and subject matter expert. In other words, asking questions increases engagement. This is aided by the study of mirror neurons, which show increased brain activity in both students and teachers when they are involved in active learning.
This is why it’s so important to consider human interactions at every step of your learning strategy. Instead of just setting a curriculum of course content and tracking degrees, you need to create space for open discussion, dialogue and collaboration. With the right hands-on exercises and strategies, you can encourage experts and learners to work together, share knowledge, and solve difficult problems.
So what are some specific collaborative learning strategies that you can use to apply the science of active learning? We have 3 great suggestions.
1. Double your engagement rates with internal collaboration
Publishing a course should be a joint exercise. Instead of just designing and shipping something yourself, you can double your learner engagement rates simply by bringing ideas and suggestions from other subject matter experts in your organization. But how much internal collaboration are we talking about?
Our analysis of platform activity found that engagement rates doubled when a course had at least three internal comments between two or more people. These conversations can be anything from co-authors developing strategies on course content to reviewers providing feedback to course authors.
The most important souvenir: Adding co-authors to your courses can help you come up with ideas, improve content, and create an easy collaborative environment. So, get extra eyes on your new courses by assigning reviewers to go through them and provide useful feedback and edits.
2. Receive 27% more useful courses with regular peer feedback
In addition to these course creation insights, our analysis also shows that learners find courses that are regularly updated 27% more useful. This is great news for any L&D team: all you need to do is update your course information regularly to increase student engagement.
The good news is that the right learning platform can make it incredibly easy to know when to update content. With our reaction function, learners can, for example, seamlessly mark outdated or irrelevant content by answering “I don’t understand” or “This is out of date”. You can also rate the relevance of a course as useful or not useful to them. Authors and L&D teams are instantly notified and can act at lightning speed to update their courses. With an instant feedback loop, the right courses are updated and updated so learners get the information they need while keeping engagement high.
Main takeaway: By giving your learners the opportunity to provide regular feedback on the courses they are taking, you can create courses that are 27% more useful to your learners, resulting in more engaging courses and engagement and a contributes to higher employee loyalty. You just need to find the right way to build these responses into the learning process.
3. Increase your response rates to 75.9% with tailored questions
The last of our three data-driven collaborative learning strategies? You can increase your response rates by including tailored questions. That’s because, with an astonishing 75.9% conversion rate, these questions generate the most positive responses. In other words, 75.9% of the time a question was asked in a course, a learner engaged and responded positively to it.
Now let’s dig even deeper. For all question types, there were two with the highest engagement: true / false and hotspot questions. Asking questions throughout the study journey has a ton of benefits. They are a great way to measure understanding of content and help L&D teams better understand and customize courses to improve understanding of certain concepts. Questions also improve memory by helping learners remember the information they just picked up.
The most important souvenir: With targeted and tailored questions, you can increase your learners’ response rates, engage your teams in active learning, and contribute to better course completion and higher learning outcomes.
Conclusion
With so many people struggling to stay engaged in today’s workplace – especially remotely – these tips offer more than just practical guides for L&D teams. They show us that learning and development don’t have to suffer just because we can’t be physically together.
As the three strategies show, we can use human interaction to make learning active, engaging and fun by foregoing solo e-learning strategies and instead connecting learners with experts. We can create participatory experiences that give learners the tools they need to develop new skills, retain information and expertise, and learn from one another. Once your learners have these tools, they can improve their learning KPIs.
Using collaborative learning techniques, we can change the traditional role of the teacher or trainer. Instead, collaborative learning strategies encourage learners to declare their own needs, network with subject matter experts, and offer peer feedback to create and improve learning content that meets pressing business needs.
We speak to L&D experts on a regular basis and these discussions show us that collaborative learning strategies that focus on human interaction produce better results. With our learning management system, our users participate in an average of 11 learning activities per day, with course completion rates increasing from the industry average from 20-30% to over 90%. This way, your teams not only learn more; They’re also happier, more engaged, and more satisfied.
Are you looking for inside secrets to change attitudes towards online training and actively involve employees in the process? Download the eBook on How Collaborative Learning Raises Engagement Rates to Over 90% to learn how the collaborative approach breaks down barriers and maximizes your company’s L&D potential.
References:
360Learning
360Learning is the learning platform that combines collaborative tools with the power of an LMS. We empower L&D teams to drive culture and growth through collaborative learning.
