How to Use Nudge with Your Online Course and LMS

The Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve was developed in the latter part of the 19th century by German psychologist and early developer of the scientific research of learning and memory, Hermann Ebbinghaus to describe our ability to retain information we encounter. Also included above is a visual representation of his research on the impact of Spacing, or spaced learning whereby a learner periodically revisits the material in order to retain more knowledge for longer.

The critical insight for coaches, teachers, facilitators, subject matter experts, and learners is that being presented information once is never enough. Learning is a process that requires repetition.

The Transtheoretical Model for Behavior Change or Stages of Change Model was developed by James Prochaska and Carlo DiClemente in the late 1970s and evolved through research describing why some individuals were able to quit smoking on their own, while others required additional interventions.

The model has since been applied in myriad contexts to help describe the requirement of an individual to be ready and willing to take on a behavior change in order for it to stick.

The Experiential Learning Cycle was developed by a learning theorist David Kolb in the late 1970s and published in the early 1980s as a simple 4-step model core to Experiential Learning Theory. Experiential learning features the importance of actively engaging and involving the learner in the learning process through concrete experience, reflection, thinking and applying conclusions in new contexts for further exploration.

Deeper learning is like peak athletic training, requiring repetitions in increasingly challenging a varied contexts until the learner becomes so skilled at applying their knowledge in the real world that it feels almost automatic.

The Learning Utility Model was developed internally at Nudge to highlight the importance of the value of deeper, continued learning in our lives. Crucially, it combines traditional learning, or gaining comprehension and ability to apply a subject, with the increase in value gained by the learners continued willingness to translate key learnings into repeated habits that continue to add value to their lives. This combines understandings of behavioral readiness or motivation with traditional learning models to show that learning itself generates only limited utility in comparison to the value that can be generate from habit and identity formation. Or as James Clear’s words, “Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.”

At the peak of the continuum, the learner has embraced the subject matter or area of expertise as a part of their identity and thus maximizes the value from their subject expertise as a core part of their lives, sense of self, and livelihoods. This is the road to self-actualization and fulfillment.

Here we highlight the importance of platforms like Nudge that enable the ongoing direct connection and guidance of an expert or coach, plus ongoing tracking and habit formation tools, which are the critical ingredients in enabling online courses or programs to deliver maximum value to learners who want to not only learn, but become more through their experience.

This cannot be achieved by traditional online courses in traditional learning management systems.