The Creating Passionate Users site offers a Crash course in learning theory:
- Talk to the brain first, mind second.
- Provide a meaningful benefit for each topic, in the form of “why you should care about this” scenario.
- Use visuals!
- Use redundancy to increase understanding and retention.
- Maintain interest with variety and surprise.
- Use conversational language.
- Use mistakes, failures, and counter-intuitive WTF?
- Use the filmaker (and novelist) principle of SHOW-don’t-TELL.
- Use “chunking” to reduce cognitive overhead.
- Since stress/anxiety can reduce focus and memory, do everything possible to make the learner feel relaxed and confident.
- Use seduction, charm, mystery to build curiosity.
- Use a spiral model to keep users engaged.
- Don’t rob the learner of the opportunity to think!
- Use the 80/20 principle to reduce cognitive overload.
- Context matters.
- Emotion matters!
- Never underestimate the power of FUN to keep people engaged.
- Use stories.
- Use pacing and vary the parts of the brain you’re exercising.
- Remember, it’s never about you. It’s about how the learner feels about himself as a result of the learning experience.