Training Industry Magazine - January/February 2021 - 37

professional sphere, and it may be
that we're not sure we know how to
make authentically emotional content.
However, current trends are lining up to
make 2021 the year we finally embrace
truly human-centric learning design
and - in so doing - fully harness the
power of emotion for more effective and
efficient learning. Here are the trends
that will fuel the transformation:

noteworthy headlines were those that
represented the full spectrum of the
employee experience, including powerful
emotional content.

Increased focus on
diversity, equity and
inclusion training.

Increased adoption
of learn-by-doing
strategies.

Companies want better ideas, stronger
talent and increased innovation. To
accomplish this, they are increasingly
focused on ensuring that all voices are
heard, all perspectives are understood
and all employees are respected. Serious
efforts require building deep levels of
empathy in the employee population,
which necessitate that corporations
begin taking seriously the need to
address and provide emotional context.

Ineffective teach-by-telling approaches
are being replaced by more effective
experiential learning approaches in
which learners encounter realistic
challenges, make decisions, experience
consequences and receive coaching
on their performance. This is especially
true of virtual reality, where the main
draw is the ability to simulate a range
of situations that were previously
either too costly or dangerous to allow
employees to practice in. Because
these technologies produce such rich
data, we have seen a wave of evidence
supporting both VR and experiential
learning opportunities that underpin it.

Prediction: Based on this, 2021 is
the year we will see the best diversity,
equity and inclusion courses of all time.
They will be great, because they will
fully embrace and demonstrate the
emotional reality of employees.

Many companies shy
away from the most
important ingredient
in an effective learning
experience: emotion.

Improved adoption
rates of virtual reality
(VR) technologies.
2020 saw a rapid increase in the number of
companies incorporating VR technology
in training. The trend was driven by
multiple factors, including cheaper yet
higher-quality headsets, more accessible
development tools and an explosion of
use cases that have proven the value of
immersive technologies. Unsurprisingly,
the use cases that generated the most

Prediction: The adoption of virtual
reality technology in training will continue
its rapid growth, and we will routinize
the use of emotional context as a key
success factor for the medium.

Prediction: In 2021, learning and
development (L&D) will begin to
generalize the learning approaches that
make virtual reality so impactful and
apply those lessons to humbler solutions,
such as scenario-based learning and
virtual role-plays in ways that rely on trueto-life, emotionally relevant content.

Focus on reducing seat
time and increasing the
efficiency of training
through microlearning
strategies.
In 2020, we've seen a shift to shorter,
chunked learning opportunities in
learning and development efforts. The
focus has, to date, largely led learning
teams to provide explainer, refresher and
TED-style videos to leverage the brevity
and engagement of microlearning.
Prediction: Due to the increased
adoption of micro and immersive

learning experiences coupled with the
focus on learn-by-doing strategies,
organizations will pivot to provide
microlearning scenarios and other
short-form, experiential learning content
that necessitates dramatic, engaging
contexts with emotional appeal.

Current trends are
lining up to make 2021
the year we finally
embrace truly humancentric learning.

Designing learning
experiences rather
than courses.
This past year, the corporate learning
market has seen an explosion of
entrants into the learning experience
platform space. At the same time,
learning organizations have become
more determined to offer learners
individualized learning paths that span
multiple modalities over an extended
period of time.
Prediction: Over the coming year, we
will see learning experience platforms
expand to include deeply immersive
microlearning, as well as support for
virtual reality, augmented reality, games
and interactive simulations that are
deeply emotionally engaging.
With these trends and predictions in
mind, 2021 looks like the year L&D
finally cracks some of the historically
largest barriers we've experienced to
learner engagement. However, doing
so requires our collective willingness
to address the full range of our own
and our colleagues' lived experiences,
including the emotional highs and lows
of our innermost selves.
Brandon Dickens is a senior director of
user experience at NIIT. In addition to
leading NIIT's global user experience
team, he founded NIIT's immersive learning
practice, a team that builds advanced
learning solutions leveraging augmented,
mixed and virtual reality. Email Brandon.

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