Four Ways Adaptive 3.0 Cranks Up Training Efficiency… To The Delight of Everyone

Time is money. It’s a cliché, but it’s also true. So, training that’s faster sounds great. Get those employees back to work. But, as you might expect, “faster” training doesn’t consistently produce great training results. Just because learners finish the training quickly and get back to their “billable hours,” doesn’t mean that they’re equipped with the knowledge they need to succeed.

Fast and learning aren’t things most people typically associate together. Some of the disconnect between “fast” and “learning” makes sense. In fact, we could argue that the natural process for learning itself isn’t very “fast,” especially when it comes to complex material and/or learning that goes against pre-existing beliefs and habits. After all, it takes time for people to learn new things. It takes effort for the brain to absorb, encode and store new learning into memory. And for deep learning and long-term memory formation, science has shown that seemingly inefficient things like sleep and forgetting are essentials.

But, as we said, time is money. So, we shouldn’t give up on “faster” and reducing training times. We should, instead, shift our attention to efficiency (faster and proficiency).

In that vein, while we can’t change how the brain fundamentally works, we CAN use tools, techniques and findings from personalization, AI-powered adaptivity, cognitive science to improve how we deliver training – making it much more efficient (faster and equal or greater proficiency).

This is exactly what the Fulcrum platform does for learners and organizations – it leverages AI, cognitive science and data-science based predictions to ratchet up the efficiency (and effectiveness) of training and learning. Fulcrum’s Adaptive 3.0 training platform is designed to help learners achieve mastery quickly, so they can accurately apply what they’ve learned back on the job. For example, one partner reduced program completion times from an average of 51 days to an average of 23 days – that’s a 55% improvement (for thousands and thousands of employees) – and its employees went on to demonstrate a nearly 60% reduction in on-the-job errors because they were equipped with confident mastery of the material. Fast + Mastery = Efficiency.    

Here are a four examples of how Fulcrum’s platform delivers on this equation:

Adaptive Optimal Challenge

Fulcrum’s platform maps and analyzes each learner’s performance and behavioral choices within the learning environment and adapts content in real-time to deliver the “Optimal Challenge” for each learner. It’s like having a dedicated learning coach “working you out,” for maximum efficiency. This means that the platform serves up content that’s the exact right level of difficulty for each individual’s needs, and it does it at scale. This technique keeps learners engaged and motivated, and boosts efficiency by focusing learning efforts at the right degree of difficulty to help them master the material as quickly as possible. And the efficiency gains are dramatic, advantageous and appealing to everyone (from the learner to the CFO).

Self-Paced Environment

Our platform uses a competency-based model that’s self-paced. For learners with little subject matter familiarity, our self-paced approach allows them to practice building strong skill fundamentals without feeling rushed to keep up with more experienced learners. Conversely, for learners who already have deep experience or knowledge in a subject area, our self-paced approach allows them to quickly demonstrate mastery and test out of the content they already know. This means that experienced learners can quickly move on to the concepts they’ve yet to learn or complete the course and avoid getting bogged down (and, in turn, frustrated) by being forced to review material they’ve already mastered. 

This test out capability that verifies mastery is ideal for companies with learners who have prior experience with the training material, such as mandatory annual compliance training. Not only do learners get through the content quickly (because they’ve likely seen the same/similar compliance learning year after year), but it also provides learners with a much better user experience.

The graphic above shows the speed and dramatic time savings of the fastest and slowest learners through a course in our adaptive platform that replaced an 80-hour, in-class course.  The other side of the story: a 38% knowledge improvement, 100% pass rate on high-stakes written and oral exams after completing training course and 81% positive learner feedback.

Content Optimization 

A finely tuned course helps learners achieve mastery with the greatest efficiency. That’s because, when a course is optimized and “problematic” content is removed or remediated, learners are much less likely to get bogged down by confusing material or be left questioning inaccuracies, and in turn, course integrity. As a result, they’re more focused, less distracted and there are fewer roadblocks to full mastery of the content. In fact, when content is optimized, Fulcrum’s data analytics have shown that learners perform better, not just in that particular area but also in overall course performance.

Self-Remediation

Our platform’s analytics also serve up learning recommendations that encourage self-remediation, shore up confidence and build mastery. Our platform’s learner dashboard customizes a “Pathway to Mastery” for each learner – helping them understand where their specific weaknesses lie and providing a clear pathway for remediating themselves. This capability gives learners greater agency over their own learning, which in turn piques their curiosity, fosters greater motivation/engagement, boosts their confidence and, in the end, supports greater application of the training.

In fact, some learners even tell us things like:

“The periodic check ins forced me to really engage the material, which helped me learn more than I normally would by breezing through the content.”

It also delivers efficiency gains for L&D departments as well. Allowing learners to address learning challenges on their own lifts the burden of remediation off the shoulders of L&D. As a result, L&D teams can spend less time on intervention. Also, since self-remediation is done within the Fulcrum platform, L&D departments don’t have to worry about things like scheduling conflicts or overly “full-plates” when it comes to remediating learners. Rather, learners get the remediation at the point of need – making it… you guessed it, another manifestation of efficiency.

With efficiency (not just “faster”), organizations experience dramatic cost, time and resource-saving benefits. They get their people through training faster, which as you might expect, receives high marks from learners. They also get employees who are better prepared to remember the training and accurately apply it once they’re back on the job. If reducing training time while maintaining high quality, high-efficacy training is a valuable advantage to you, you might be very interested in Fulcrum’s Adaptive 3.0 training platform.