She was hooked!
What is your learner’s first impression? Does the start of the course draw them in or push them away? Get sparks flying – or zzzz’s?
Gaining learner attention is the first step in Gagné’s 9 Events of Instruction. Before teaching any topic or subject, you will need to arouse a sense of interest or curiosity.
Think about it. Whether your learner’s day is comprised of manufacturing tasks or wall-to-wall meetings, multiple priorities are likely competing for their attention. How will the message in your module be heard over the din of their day? Part of the instructional designer’s job is to design well-crafted hooks so that right off the bat, learners are engaged in the experience. Pique their interest. Draw them in. Make your opening enticing. But how? How can you create opening hooks that will make your learner sit up and take notice?
Spark curiosity. Psychologists think headlines like the ones used here and in many web ads compel us to click them because they hit just the right balance of information and intrigue to light up our curiosity drive.
Because of their often misleading nature, these types of headlines have earned the pejorative term clickbait, or even trickbait. And millions of people – even those aware that they are being baited – take the bait and click. According to figures by Quantcast, Buzzfeed, for example, regularly attracts more than 10 million unique users a day. But why do they work? And what can we learn from them?
According to George Loewenstein of Carnegie Mellon, curiosity occurs when you feel a gap between what you currently know and what you want to know. This gap creates a sense of deprivation, so you take action to alleviate that negative feeling. Freud referred to curiosity as a thirst for knowledge. Today’s neuroscientists are calling curiosity an itch on the brain and suggesting that the reason people seek out new knowledge is because that’s how they scratch the itch. It’s how they quench their thirst.
Lowenstein wrote about the information gap theory in 1994, long before the rise of social media, but current websites like Buzzfeed have “turned clickbaiting into an art form” by using the curiosity gap. They give you a little information with just enough of a tease at the end to intrigue you into wanting to know more.
The good news is that with a little planning, you can make this curiosity drive work for you, too. You can draw learners into your content with some strategically placed curiosity boosters.
Of course, unlike clickbait headlines, you’ll want what follows to be meaningful and memorable for the learner, rather than disappoint them. Just as an intriguing headline does not equate to an interesting story, a great opening hook does not equate to a well-designed course.
It’s the job of the instructional designer to ensure excellence in e-learning by first attracting the learner’s attention. Without this step, you likely won’t be able to move them through the rest of Gagné’s steps. With this step, you can draw them in and guide them through, so that the promises made in the hook can be delivered through an effective experience. Then, follow through with outstanding training that changes behaviors and makes a difference in people’s lives.
