A long learning time doesn’t mean more retention

Did you know that the time allocated to learning and training influences retention? More precisely how much information you save in memory.

When you spend more time with a book or with training material doesn’t mean that you learn more, or memorized more. It just means that you spend a lot of time in front of the material. If you learn outside the attention span, is as unproductive as filling a full glass. So the first rule of efficient training is to learn only as long as you have focus and attention.

“When we mentally attend to whatever we are learning, the brain can map the information on which we are focusing … When we don’t pay complete attention to what we are doing in the present moment, our brain activates a host of other synaptic networks that can distract it from its original intention. Without focused concentration, brain connections are not made, and memory is not stored.” (Joe Dispenza, D.C – The Science of Changing Your Mind: Evolve your Brain)

This video explains how retention scores when it comes to learning over a long period of time.  The time that you allocate to a learning session could work against you if you don’t know how it influences retention. You get to retain more information from learning over short but repetitive periods of time.

It also stands for employees training. Understanding that effective learning takes place in short but consequent learning sessions, is useful for improving the training of your employees. The time allocated for a training session influences how much of the material will be retained. The time works also against your employees if they have to attend long hours of training (here is an article presenting the other problems with long employees trainings).

Record the knowledge to be transferred on videos so that the employees can learn in flexible amounts of time. Where and when they do have the need to apply the information. And as often as needed to refresh the details.