When you are creating your eLearning custom content, your intention is to make sure that your students will pay attention to your information until the very end. If they lose focus at one point of the lesson, you might find that your eLearning goals and the student’s expectations will not be met.
Fortunately, there is a way for you to make your content somewhat addictive – so you can hook all learners until the very end. You can view it in the same way as when you are looking at your accounts on Facebook, Twitter or any other social networks. You decide to open it for a few minutes and you end up viewing it for a couple of hours. It is addictive.
You want to do that same as you are creating your custom content. Well the key to that is to trigger the dopamine loop in the brains of your students. That is how you make them addicted to your content. That is how they are conditioned to crave your content.
It is scientifically proven that the dopamine neurotransmitters help motivate us to continue going after a goal. That is what you will try to target. When this is stimulated, students who accomplish a goal will continue to pursue more goals. That is how it usually works.
Now the question is, how can you trigger these dopamine neurotransmitters?
One way is come up with hunt in your custom content. Make the course exploratory. In order to get to the next phase of the lesson, let them search for it. Or you can use interactive games that will encourage them to explore the solution on their own. Gamification is always one of the best ways to keep your students engaged.
There is also another technique that is used by the film industry. It is called “jolts.” These can be laughter, audio changes, camera angle shifts and other changes. The dopamine is stimulated by surprises. Anything that you change will jolt the brain awake and will keep the students interested. So make sure that you stay away from similar pages or layouts. Deviate from that and give the different segments of your course some variety. These surprises work in keeping us interested because we have short attention spans. Use images in one segment and then use a video in the other. Your custom content can also use various games to make it more interesting. Remove repetitions from your course.
You should also incorporate a sound that will mark an accomplishment and a reward. This is one repetition that you can do. Everytime the students does something correctly, the same sound will be heard. The brain will register this as something that is associated with success. This will be marked as something pleasurable by your brain – thus triggering the dopamine to help you want to reach another goal. Any audio or visual cues that goes before a reward is something that the dopamine is sensitive to.
Lastly, you want to make sure that the course come in small bits and pieces. Do not give everything at once. Otherwise, it will be very difficult for the brain to absorb it. Information overload can be render your custom content useless. It is better to give them one taste at a time so they are craving for the next morsel of information.
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