Pushing and pulling feels like a violent scene from a Black Friday deal stampede. But, these additionally occur to be helpful phrases to grasp in a studying and growth context.

Both push and pull are helpful strategies that stem from the world of promoting. In this context, pushing and pulling are used to explain the alternative ways through which a buyer or potential purchaser will discover and buy a product.

A push technique entails shoving your product on the market on your buyer to see! Traditionally this meant sending somebody a leaflet or brochure, however now you see it within the type of e mail advertising and paid promoting on search engines like google and social media.

A pull technique, however, is about bringing the client to you. With the whole lot of human information accessible at our fingertips, we’ve turn into fairly good at doing our personal analysis.

However, these examples relate to advertising. Here at Growth Engineering, we’re all about studying and growth. As such, let’s discover how push and pull approaches work within the studying house.

Buckle up and prepare to be taught!

What Is Push Learning?

Push studying is a method we sometimes affiliate with conventional instructor-led studying, the place learners are knowledgeable of what to be taught and by when.

Most of us have expertise with push studying from the early years of training, the place data is delivered in classroom classes. However, it may additionally occur in a web based studying surroundings. 

For occasion, scheduled classes of on-line studying and necessary coaching content material despatched to learners on a studying administration system (LMS) are a type of push studying.

Regardless of the coaching supply methodology, push studying follows a set cycle. Learners work by way of an assigned necessary module and sometimes take an evaluation to check their information. They’re then pushed the following piece of content material and proceed on their journey.

What Is Pull Learning?

As you may anticipate, pull studying is the other of push studying. It places learners in command of what they be taught and once they be taught it. Learners actively search for data the place it exists.

As such, it’s a kind of just-in-time studying the place the expertise is tailor-made to every learner’s wants. This is extraordinarily helpful in at this time’s on-demand surroundings.

Pull studying encourages autonomy and permits learners to take possession of their coaching. They can entry data on the level of want and give attention to matters that may assist them sort out their particular expertise gaps. 

As learners take an lively position in pull studying, this raises the query of what prompts them to pick out particular studying content material. There are a number of forces at play right here:

1. Curiosity: If your learners are inquisitive about a subject, they’re prone to hunt down solutions by themselves.
2. Staying Relevant: If your learners need to keep on prime of the newest pondering, analysis and improvements, they’ll be motivated to hunt out this data.
3. Just-in-Time Need: Some learners require entry to data on the level of want. This may assist them to shut a sale, be taught a brand new instrument or become familiar with up to date rules and laws.
4. Growth: Some learners search data to progress of their private or skilled lives. For occasion, they might want to acquire a brand new talent they should get a promotion. 

With this in thoughts, pull studying works greatest when the learner is:

• Self-motivated to amass new information
• Self-aware sufficient to know the place their talent gaps lie
• Open to spending time looking for related content material
• Confident in self-directed studying

Pushing or Pulling: Which Is Better?

Both push and pull studying include benefits and downsides: 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Push Learning

Due to the inflexible and common nature of push studying, it has some pure advantages. For examination

ple, your learners are acquainted with the format, and you may simply verify course completion.

Some much less self-directed learners may even choose push studying. After all, they get pre-scheduled coaching in entrance of them they usually don’t have to fret about looking for sources or evaluating their high quality.

Similarly, there’ll at all times be studying that individuals want to finish in a sure timeframe or format. For occasion, most job roles require particular certifications or {qualifications} which might be legitimate for a set time interval.

However, out of your learners’ perspective, push studying is a comparatively passive mannequin. After all, learners look ahead to the data to succeed in them. As such, they don’t actively exit to search for sources or coaching supplies.

This passive position is among the largest downsides of push studying. If your learners aren’t actively engaged, it turns into very straightforward for them to dam, ignore or fail to soak up key data. What’s extra, they could turn into reliant on pushed content material and fail to totally embrace necessary non-obligatory studying experiences.

In addition, push studying is a time-consuming methodology. Your learners depend on your scheduling, communication and reminders to tackle some coaching. Making positive every learner will get related content material pushed to them on the proper time can turn into an administrative nightmare!

Advantages and Disadvantages of Pull Learning

Learners are extra web-literate than ever earlier than. As a end result, most of us are skilled in searching down data as we’d like it. Think in regards to the time you spent on YouTube educating your self the right way to knit or wanting up a brand new recipe on-line.

As such, pull studying comes extra naturally to at this time’s trendy learners. They are already acquainted with looking for data and evaluating the standard of the sources they discover.

It’s no marvel that pull studying is getting increasingly engaging within the studying and growth panorama. New expertise makes the method broadly accessible as learners have an enormous on-line library stuffed with related sources at their fingertips.

By with the ability to entry data on the level of want, learners can sustain with at this time’s fast-paced world. After all, they now not have to attend on your firm to organise their coaching. Instead, they will entry a wide range of studying sources each time they need.

Pull studying additionally makes it simpler to tailor coaching to every learner’s distinctive wants, expertise gaps and preferences. Furthermore, studying expertise makes it straightforward to judge and measure the outcomes from pull studying.

However, pull studying additionally has its downsides. In truth, as we explored earlier than, the tactic depends on learners being self-motivated people who’ve the information, expertise and self-awareness to decide on the optimum studying sources.

This is just not essentially the case and will result in ineffective expertise growth for people preferring extra steering.

Similarly, we all know that workers have, on common, simply 24 minutes per week to commit to coaching. While pull studying supplies much-needed flexibility, it additionally leaves it as much as the person to suit their coaching into their diaries.

So, Should I Push or Pull?

Both!

Even although conventional push methods sound inflexible and considerably outdated, we nonetheless want the strategy. However, points can come up if organisations solely use push studying and fail to capitalise on the large alternatives pull studying brings.

But pull studying alone is just not the reply both. As such, balancing them each in your coaching programme is the important thing to success and learner engagement.

As we’ve explored, the most important distinction between these strategies is the decision-making behind the training. In push studying, an outdoor authority, whether or not that’s a trainer, L&D skilled or an organisation, decides what the learner must be taught.

Pull studying, however, permits learners to make this determination. From a learner’s perspective, the distinction may look one thing like this: “You need to learn this” versus “I want to learn this”.

If you mix push and pull studying methods, you’ll be able to take the most effective of each worlds. It means that you can create a coaching programme that guides learners and supplies obligatory coaching whereas additionally selling learner authority and self-directed studying.

It may also turn into simpler to bridge your learners’ distinctive studying wants. After all, you’ll be able to push them in the direction of the fundamentals of the subject after which encourage them to tug studying content material that helps them to beat their particular points.

Understanding the right way to mix these strategies is simpler after you comprehend how they can be utilized in studying within the first place. As such, let’s take a look at some push and pull studying methods!

Push and Pull Learning Strategies for Learner Engagement

Ultimately, combining push and pull studying will enable you to spice up learner engagement. This, in flip, means you will notice higher outcomes and improved coaching ROI.

There are numerous methods these approaches can be utilized to have interaction your learners. While a few of the examples beneath are more durable to categorise strictly as push or pull methods, they provides you with an thought of helpful strategies.

Push Learning Strategies

• Present content material in a visually attention-grabbing method and use your branding all through the coaching programme.
• Provide studying pathways, both in Level or curricula format, in order that your learners can see the journey forward of them.
• Vary your content material codecs, utilizing, for instance, movies, animations, interview transcripts or infographics.
• Use narrative inside your coaching content material and inform a memorable story.
• Start with a related downside and resolve it because the content material unravels.
• Use real-world examples and case research to narrate content material to your learners’ private {and professional} objectives.
• Create a private connection by highlighting WIIFM (‘What’s in it for me’).
• Emphasise potential adverse repercussions of not understanding the subject at hand.
• Sprinkle in actions that your learners full as they observe alongside along with your coaching programme.
• Use approaches like social studying and gamification.
• Push studying content material in set intervals, as an illustration, as soon as per week, in order that learners come to anticipate common studying alternatives.

Pull Learning Strategies

• Create a library stuffed with studying content material and supply entry to all learners.
• Create social areas and host common occasions and conversations to encourage social studying.
• Provide useful suggestions, tutorials and ‘how to’ sources.
• Make studying interactive with approaches like scenario-based studying and game-based studying.
• Set challenges or current issues that require your learners to analysis or discover content material.
• Incentivise studying, content material completion or digital studying exercise with digital or real-life rewards.
• Use user-generated content material in your coaching sources.
• Involve learners within the design of their evaluation briefs and marking standards.
• Include sensible actions that assist learners sort out real-life challenges.
• Encourage wholesome competitors by way of gamification to encourage self-directed studying.
• Provide hyperlinks to extra exterior sources the place learners can proceed their autonomous studying.
• Use gamification to offer instantaneous suggestions and alternatives for self-evaluation.

Applying Push and Pull Learning within the Digital Era

Now that you simply perceive every strategy higher let’s discover how one can mix push and pull studying to create the last word coaching programme. 

Learning expertise, like studying administration techniques or cellular studying purposes, has made it a lot simpler to mix these strategies. Better nonetheless, trendy learners are already accustomed to digital instruments and on-line studying.

Let’s discover a few of the digital studying options that enable you to create a cohesive push and pull studying technique!

1. Gamification

Gamification is the appliance of recreation mechanics to non-gaming environments. Gamification options, like XP, Badges, Leaderboards, Battles and Levels, are helpful in each push and pull studying.

For instance, learners can stage up as they progress by way of their coaching programme. You can assign new content material that turns into accessible at every stage. As such, you push content material to learners within the order of your selecting.

However, gamification additionally makes studying extra enjoyable and fascinating. This, in flip, pulls your learners again to the training platform. Similarly, by understanding the content material is gamified and enjoyable to discover, your learners usually tend to full coaching with out being pushed to take action.

2. Social Learning

Social studying is primarily a pull studying methodology. For instance, learners can discover their Social Feeds or Clubs to seek out real-life examples, related discussions or different learners sharing helpful sources.

In addition, learners can rank and price content material as soon as they’ve explored it. This serves as a helpful information for different learners who’re pulling content material from the library.

One of our studying expertise options, Growth Engineering LMS, additionally comes with a devoted Experts Area. It’s an space the place learners can pose inquiries to related subject material consultants (SMEs) inside their organisation.

The solutions to those questions are public, forming a helpful useful resource for all learners on the platform. Your learners can acquire extra insights and your execs get an opportunity to showcase their experience. It’s the reward that retains giving!

Of course, as soon as your Q&A web page is stuffed with helpful data, you’ll be able to push your learners in the direction of it and embrace it as part of your coaching programme.

3. Personalised Content

Your coaching content material, and the programme as a complete, have to be related to your learners’ wants. The secret’s to make sure you present personalised coaching.

Our LMS and studying app have a ‘My Things To Do’ part on the person dashboard. As an Admin, you’ll be able to push the right content material in the direction of particular learners. This can embrace any coaching materials inside your content material library.

And, in fact, be sure that to personalise the content material itself. You can use identify tokens and different private parts to make the coaching extra participating and related.

4. Mobile Learning

Mobile studying is such a terrific addition to your pull and push technique that it deserves its personal level!

Most of at this time’s workers are acquainted with cellular units. In truth, over 86% of the worldwide inhabitants owns a smartphone. The familiarity alone makes it a terrific studying instrument.

However, cellular studying additionally improves accessibility. After all, we supply our mobiles with us all over the place. As such, learners can entry and pull content material each time they need and wherever they’re.

5. Push Notifications

Here at Growth Engineering, we love the facility of notifications. On our studying app, we use push notifications. These alerts direct and inform learners and, on this case, push them again to the training app.

Similarly, we advocate our LMS Admins to ship e mail notifications to remind learners of latest releases or content material they need to eat subsequent. This mild nudge helps to information learners and remind them of their coaching.

6. Blended Learning

While we’re digital studying execs, we additionally recognise the probabilities of blended studying. This strategy mixes on-line studying with conventional classroom-based face-to-face classes.

Blended studying can also be a good way to include each push and pull studying! For instance, you’ll be able to push learners in the direction of particular content material throughout your classroom classes. 

Learners can then use their on-line studying platform to discover extra content material at their very own tempo. Similarly, they will make the most of social studying options to broaden their information.

7. Narrative

Adding narrative to your coaching content material is a improbable

 technique to enhance learner engagement! This is necessary, as a result of engagement is the key to success for any pull-focused studying strategy.

As such, by weaving compelling tales into your coaching programme, you’ll preserve learners coming again many times. And, in fact, coaching content material pushed in the direction of your learners turns into rather more attention-grabbing when it’s bolstered with a compelling story.

8. Assessments and Quizzes

Evaluating learner efficiency is the spine of coaching. After all, you should perceive how a lot their expertise and information have improved because of your coaching initiative.

Assessments and quizzes enable you to analyse efficiency. Similarly, check outcomes enable you to uncover any remaining expertise gaps. You can then push related content material in the direction of your learners!

Mid-content exams or quiz questions additionally assist your learners entry rapid suggestions and alternatives for self-reflection. Based on their outcomes, they will then pull and discover extra coaching content material.

Final Words

Pull studying has been steadily rising in reputation, primarily because of advances in expertise. Digital options have gifted us with the chance to enhance our information anyplace and at any time.

In truth, learners now have entry to a library stuffed with helpful and related content material in just some clicks. They can pull sources to enhance their information on the level of want.

Nonetheless, push studying continues to be related, and it’ll stay necessary. After all, the steering and construction it supplies will at all times be wanted the place studying is worried.

Put the 2 collectively, and also you’ve acquired your self a recipe for studying success! When mixed, these strategies work in concord to create sturdy studying experiences.

Eager to be taught extra in regards to the impression expertise has had on the L&D trade? Explore our Resources Archive at this time!