The human brain is one of the most amazing pieces of nature’s own engineering. We still know very little about it, but scientists are constantly uncovering more and more of its secrets. As a long-time trainer and learning aficionado I’ve always been interested in this magic “box” that enables us to do all the things we’re capable of doing: we learn, we forget, we dream, we think and, most notably, we seem to function most of the time without apparently doing any of the above.

I can ask you right now what your left pinkie toe feels like and you can easily “tune in” to that information, but you probably don’t have any idea what it felt like yesterday at 2:45 p.m. If it feels fine now, it most likely was fine then, too. You can reach this conclusion by deduction. But the information about how it really felt—information that you did in fact know at the time—is lost forever.

So you can see that we have poor retention of information that we do not consciously pay attention to. On the other hand, we are much better at remembering something when we focus on it. As you all know, this is key for any kind of teacher or trainer. The goal is to get students to focus their attention on what we are trying to teach. You must know your enemies: headaches, cell phones, domestic issues, illnesses, learning disabilities, daydreams, etc. You name it and I’m sure they are constantly on students’ minds.

However, there are a great many things you can do to keep your students’ attention. Many you already know: an environment conducive to learning, turning off cell phones, and all the other things you immediately recognize when entering a good training facility. However, there are also other aspects that help students staying focused. I call it MORSE code:

Meaning – Overview – Relevance – Simplicity – Experience

Meaning
This sounds obvious, but is worth stating: content that has meaning for the student is more likely to be remembered. Meaning also enables students to focus as it affects their motivation. There is a close connection with relevance, yet there are differences. Meaning is more philosophical and more about “getting it,” understanding why the content is important, while relevance is more practical; it’s about how the content will be used in the student’s everyday life.

Overview
I always encourage trainers to start their course by outlining the big picture, enabling students to quickly grasp the concept, making it easier to connect the dots between different items. If those dots don’t connect, you either end up being asked many questions or you might lose your students as their brains continue to try and make sense of the input. My favorite example is geography. I remember endless lists of cities, rivers, and mountains that we had to memorize in grade school. Never once did the teacher start by showing us a map of the country or continent and giving us a bird’s-eye view of the geography. We would have understood more quickly where and how rivers run, the fact that human settlements are usually near water, etc., had we seen the maps. Seeing this, understanding this, is so much more important for the understanding of geography than the endless memorizing of dry facts.

Relevance
Content that is relevant to the student’s everyday life will facilitate the learning process. I’ve already mentioned that this is about the how of knowledge. If what is learned can be applied directly in real-life situations, the student will be much more motivated in his or her learning. Processing irrelevant information will make your students passive and make other things on their minds more attractive to think about. In adult learning, students are sometimes sent to classes because management or HR deems it necessary, but the material may not be relevant. And no matter whether the student understands the meaning or gets a great overview, information is less likely to be retained if the student can’t use what he’s learned.

Simplicity
Keeping it simple is an old truth, but how often are we presented with too much detail or too much unnecessary information? As teachers, we often know much more about the subject matter than we can teach in our courses. Make sure you prioritize and only disseminate knowledge that is essential to the students.

Experience
The last one is the most important of all because all learning is basically connecting dots—attaching new information to already existing knowledge. If we can’t do this, learning will not occur. It is therefore absolutely crucial that whatever you teach, make sure you firmly anchor it in your students’ prior experience. Part of this process is finding out as much as possible about your students before you actually get them into your classroom. Understanding students’ backgrounds will help you use examples that are meaningful and relevant to them, to help them connect the dots to what they are already familiar with. This will give them a sense of security and will stimulate a positive attitude towards the course, which we know is crucial for long-term learning.

Now this all sounds like common sense, and it is, but as with all common sense, it never hurts to repeat it. It’s also not as easy as it may sound condensed into a short article like this. If you’d like to learn more, there are excellent “train-the-trainer” courses available and libraries full of cool books on how we learn and how you can become a better trainer.

I wish you the best of luck on your amazing journey!

Submitted by Hans M. Hirschi.

Hans’ academic background lies in adult education and linguistics. Born and raised in Switzerland, he has written extensively about e-learning and training, and is the author of a best-selling book about e-learning pedagogy.