Learn some easy ways to offer personalised learning in your LMS

Personalised learning in the workplace is trending and for good reason. No longer do we want, or need to deliver mass content that doesn’t accommodate learners needs, experience or progress.

But let’s be real, crafting truly unique learning experiences for every single learner can feel like an impossible feat when done at scale. 

Delivering personalised learning for 10 learners might feel achievable, but as organisations grow, the effort, time and resources required grow too high to be sustainable or worthwhile. 

However, it’s not impossible when you choose the right tools and set up the right processes.

Keep reading to learn: 

• Why personalised learning is important
• Key ways to implement personalised learning at scale 

Let’s get started. 

What is personalised learning?

As a quick recap, personalised learning is when you deliver training that is bespoke to one individual user taking in their current knowledge, the skills they wish to develop and the way in which they like to learn. 

Personalised learning can look different. It could be that you provide learning in a variety of modes (audio, video etc) to accommodate learning styles. Or it could be creating workflows and quizzes that assess learners on their current knowledge and then deliver learning that suits them. 

Why personalised learning is important

Personalised learning can hugely benefit your core training metrics. In fact 94% of businesses say that personalisation is critical to their success. 

When your learning content is built to each learner and their unique needs, goals and preferences, they are likely to feel more motivated and ready to learn. 

Research shows that employees would spend more time on training if it aligned to their interests and goals, so it shows it is worth the investment. 

Ways to personalise learning at scale 

Thinking about adding personalisation into your LMS can feel like a bit of a minefield.

Where do you begin?

What do you personalise?

What tools do you need to achieve it?

Well, it doesn’t have to be quite so tricky. We share some easy ways to get started, as well as some more indepth ways to achieve personalisation at scale.

1. Let learners navigate courses at their own pace
2. Create a range of learning content types 
3. Provide feedback and adapt learning paths with AI
4. Add custom development to give you more control

Let’s look at each in more detail. 

Let learners navigate courses at their own pace 

This is a simple one, but we know that everybody learns differently. However, lots of traditional learning models force learners to follow along at a set pace. 

One thing we would suggest is to give self-paced eLearning content. This can form the entirety of your course content, or it can supplement face-to-face learning. 

Whichever method you choose, you can still guide learners through this content, perhaps locking content until they have attended the face-to-face learning, or mastered all the learning in the previous module. 

This gives a nice flow to your learning and allows learners to feel like they’re being taken on a journey, rather than bombarded with content. 

Create a range of learning content types 

Following on from the previous point, if you’re creating self-paced eLearning content, then you need to create a mix of media. 

Not everyone enjoys learning via videos. Some like practical learning, some prefer audio. Accommodating these types of content in your LMS is key to allowing learning to feel personalised. 

💡 Pro Tip

We’ve partnered with a number of leading learning content providers so if you’re looking to create new content, or just add to existing libraries, then you can choose from a ranging library. 

Learn more about off-the-shelf content 

Even better, with a Totara LMS, you can filter your learning by content type which gives your user easier access, and you can also add in recommendations which could include learning mediums. 

Provide feedback and adapt learning paths in realtime 

Some LMSs offer you the opportunity to create knowledge checks with real time feedback that then adjust the learning path according to the learner’s responses. 

This is an AI feature that requires a lot of setup, time and money. 

But the impact can be huge. 

It means if you take a quiz as a learner and get 100%, you can skip ahead. While, if you fail, you’ll be sent refresher material to ensure knowledge is optimised. 

This makes training much more dynamic and responsive to individual strengths and weaknesses. 

Adaptive learning is also available in Totara LMSs. 

Here, your learners can select the most relevant learning path for them, or different paths can be made available to them based on a range of criteria including course performance, job assignment and completion of other learning items.

This gives a decent scope into adaptive learning without the need for bolt-on AI tools. 

Use custom development to give you more control on learner journeys

You may not have access to an LMS with AI capabilities that can help you build adaptive learning journeys like mentioned above. 

But what you can do instead, is engage an LMS provider that is adept at customisations. 

The power of a Totara LMS is that you can easily customise it to be whatever you need it to be. Its open source allows you to manipulate it to give a sense of personalisation you won’t find out-of-the-box. 

An example of this? One of our customers asked us to create a drop-down field for a learner that mentors could select which would offer duality in learning paths. 

Learners would either be given extended learning to pickup more knowledge on a subject matter in a module.

Or, they would be able to move onto the next course if the two felt that they already had enough knowledge and skills in that particular area.  

While there are plenty of Totara partners out there, there’s not many partners out there that can do this level of customisation. 

With BuildEmpire in tow, you can get access to a dev-led L&D bolt-on team that can help you customise Totara to your heart’s content. 

Check out our case studies to see some of our work in more detail, or book a demo to see how you can benefit from core Totara plus our Edition.