“Education is every day and everywhere, the only thing that you have to pay, is attention.” Tim Fargo

Ever walk into a training session and begin your well-thought out session, only to look at the faces in the room with horror?

• Some of the students are bored.
• Some are engaged.
• And some are so far over their heads you can see their eyes glazed over.

It has happened to all of us, so what do you do? In the classroom … you can do very little except adjust to the majority … knowing that two out of three groups are not being served. However with e-learning, there is a way to serve all three.

Not a new concept, ‘branched learning’ came to light in the 1980’s. One of the first computer based training companies to develop courses that supported it was Computer Curriculum Corporation, a K-12 company located in Silicon Valley.

The idea is simple …

• Offer the learner 2-3 self-check questions.
• Behind the scenes grade the answers and the time the learner took to answer them.
• Branch the learner to the curriculum path which best meets their understanding.

Sounds simple, but to accomplish the task, you need a learning management system which supports the concept, plus you need curriculum which was written with the branching concept included. However, if you can actually deliver this type of education to your learners, the sky is the limit. Computer Curriculum Corporation boosted that, allowing a student to move up one grade level in 3 months! Those are impressive result, but maybe more importantly is the time you save, and the productivity you gain by delivering the education needed, at the correct level for the learner.

Not everyone needs everything all the time.