The rise of e-learning has made educational content more accessible than ever.
On the other hand, it also comes with some difficult challenges.
Some learners find it harder to focus or retain information when studying online.
It’s also impossible to reproduce the back-and-forth dynamic that students are used to in in-person settings.
Learning retention is a complicated topic.
Researchers are still working to understand how information is retained, but there are some good strategies you can use to maximize retention.
In this article, we’ll explain how learning retention works and to find a voice actor who can help you craft more memorable content.
When it comes to learning retention, content and form are closely connected.
In fact, research indicates that students respond to material very differently depending on the way it’s presented.
While everyone has different learning tendencies, certain presentations tend to work better than others.
The key finding of Mayer and Anderson’s 1992 study was that students retain more information when they’re exposed to both visual and auditory content.
In other words, voiceovers and visual content are far more effective in combination than either one on its own.
E-learning has been growing for years, and that trend accelerated after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in early 2020.
Schools around the world were forced to implement e-learning, often with relatively little preparation or advance notice.
It’s impossible to perfectly recreate the traditional educational experience through e-learning, but audiovisual content is the best way to approximate it.
This phenomenon fits perfectly with the dual-coding theory, which says that people code information in two different ways depending on whether the information is linguistic.
In other words, language-based content can only affect the “linguistic side” of our minds, and non-linguistic content cannot be remembered in language.
With that in mind, neither type of content will be able to optimize learning retention on its own.
A simple voice over will be limited to linguistic memory, while an animation or video will miss the linguistic component.
It’s crucial to provide both types of inputs in order to help learners remember what they’ve seen.
No matter which retention strategies you use, they won’t make a difference if learners aren’t engaged or interested.
Effective voice actors can cover even complicated topics while using vocal techniques to keep the listener’s interest and focus.
One of the most common mistakes in e-learning content development is having voice actors read text word for word.
If you’re showing a PowerPoint slide, for example, you don’t need a voice actor to repeat the text verbatim.
Instead, they should expand on the most relevant topics or cover other information that didn’t fit into the slide.
You might think that a teacher or subject matter expert is the best person to read your voice over, but this isn’t usually the case.
A professional e-learning voice actor will be much more effective when it comes to communicating information in a compelling way.
One challenge of e-learning is that it puts students in a much more passive role.
They might simply watch a recording without the opportunity to ask questions or actively engage with the material.
In the example above, the e-learning module frequently asks questions to confirm that learners are keeping up.
If the student provides the wrong answer, they’ll quickly be corrected and receive an explanation of the mistake.
This strategy also improves retention since topics will automatically be reiterated until the student recognizes their error.
On the other hand, students who understand the content the first time won’t need to waste time with additional repetitions.
Quizzes are the simplest way to ask for student input, but there are many other ways to make content more interactive.
Simulations, for example, enable students to respond to different situations and apply their knowledge in a more dynamic environment.
While e-learning comes with drawbacks, it has also exposed some shortcomings in conventional educational practices.
In-person classes often last an hour or more, while many experts believe that student attention spans can be as short as ten or fifteen minutes.
It’s no surprise that more and more educators are designing learning modules with short periods of instructions followed by quick breaks.
This breaks complicated topics into brief sections that are more manageable for learners who are less experienced with the topic.
As an e-learning creator, you need to design content that works for every learner.
This is especially tricky when it comes to pacing since some students will assimilate information more quickly than others.
Professional voice actors with experience in e-learning and other informative content understand how to pace their voice over.
Providing a clear, concise explanation at a moderate pace will make it easier for learners to follow along while also improving retention.
You don’t want to be overly repetitive, but it’s still important to repeat critical points.
Rather than saying them again and again, try to reference them later on by drawing parallels or relating them to the current topic.
Consider using a mnemonic or pattern to reinforce how each element relates to the larger whole.
For example, you might model each point as a step in a process or use the first letter of each one to spell out a word.
From there, you can come back to the pattern and keep the overall picture fresh in your students’ minds.
Learning abstract information is one thing, but understanding how it fits into your life is another.
Tying content to real-life examples will aid retention by giving learners helpful context.
Of course, this starts with showing your audience that the topic is actually worth learning about.
It’s critical to motivate students before asking them to remember new information.
Each learner should understand how the subject relates to questions and issues in their own lives.
As mentioned earlier, learning retention depends on the way information is presented.
The average student won’t be able to absorb an entire topic at once, and talking about it for several hours won’t help.
They’ll have an easier time piecing everything together if it’s broken up into a longer series of quick modules.
Along with intermittent breaks, you should also avoid overloading your audience with too much material in a single day.
This will also help you keep each lesson narrowly focused on a few key topics.
To maximize retention, you need to reinforce a memory in as many ways as possible.
With that in mind, you should encourage learners to take notes for their own benefit.
Typing the information is better than nothing, but it’s even better to write it down on paper.
This is especially true for kinesthetic learners who need to reinforce what they’re learning through physical motion.
Learning retention can’t be reduced to a single factor, especially when people learn in such different ways.
That said, there are a few reliable ways to make your educational modules more memorable.
Remember that the e-learning voice actor you work with will have a major effect on the way the content is perceived.
We hope that these tips will help you develop content that connects with your audience.
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