You have probably already noticed that the successful completion of eCademy is also linked to three essential prerequisites:

That's why, as a trainer, you provide your trainees with regular learning time in addition to their training activities. You offer a positive learning environment in which your trainees can complete tasks. Your trainees may even have the opportunity to work from home. Your company will provide them with a suitable end device (e.g. a laptop or tablet) for this purpose.

Great, most of the work is done!

Now the self-learning phases require a range of complex skills from your trainees: They need motivation and also willpower to learn successfully. At the same time, they need to be able to control and regulate their own learning.

You have an active role to play here! Find out how you can help motivate your apprentices to complete their study lists independently and successfully in this short guide.

Are the tasks too boring or too stressful for your trainees? You should avoid both at all costs. Both boredom and stress are two emotions that you definitely want to avoid in your trainees. The flow model according to psychologist Mihály Csikszentmihalyi states that learners reach a state of maximum motivation when tasks lie between under- and overload.

Our tip: Adapt your learning objectives to the individual skills, level of knowledge and needs of your trainees. This will encourage their motivation and concentration.

In the online phases, your trainees learn very independently and in a self-organized manner. Understandably, you as a trainer will have less contact with them than when they are at your training company.

It is therefore particularly important to formulate clear and precise work assignments in simple language. These should leave as little room for misunderstandings and loopholes as possible. This will ensure that your trainees know exactly what they are supposed to do and by when.

Also important: divide more complex tasks into individual work steps so that your trainees have a small sense of achievement while working on them. These successes motivate your trainees to stay on the ball. They learn that the solution is also important for completing the task.

You can provide your trainees with checklists or step-by-step self-checks, for example.

Set practice-oriented tasks that require trainees to do a bit of tinkering. Ultimately, the aim is for your trainees to be able to solve specific tasks independently and as part of a team. The advantage of this is that your trainees can incorporate their individual ideas, preferences, knowledge and skills into the learning process. If you manage to create a connection to the trainees' everyday lives with such tasks, learning becomes even more meaningful for them.

An example of such a task for trainees could be:

"Based on the learning units, create an informative article on the topic "How to resolve conflicts in the workplace." Create a media format of your choice, e.g. explanatory video, podcast, blog article or presentation."

You can find out how to formulate precise tasks as a trainer and store them in a study list here:

Make it clear to your trainees that working through the study lists is an obligatory part of their training in your company. This is where your apprentices learn the theoretical content that they will later need for the workshop lessons on site.

Define the "rules of the game" in your company right at the beginning and make them transparent to your apprentices, e.g. by means of a poster or a notice board.

Our tip: With eCademy reporting, you can see at any time where your trainees stand in terms of their skills and where there may still be challenges. And that's not all: you can also recognize when trainees often start learning and don't finish it. This is where you as a trainer are called upon in your role as a learning facilitator.

Here you can find more information on the topic of reports - reading and interpreting learning progress:

Pizza is delicious. But not every day. As with food, the keyword in teaching and learning is variety.

A variety of methods in training is the basis for effective content transfer and varied lessons. The use of different methods increases your trainees' desire to perform and enables you to strengthen different skills, e.g. social skills, self-learning, media or action skills.

Also make sure you have a balanced media mix by incorporating various analog and digital media, e.g. videos, posters, podcasts, real objects or interactive quizzes.

In order for trainees to learn well on their own, they must regularly assess and, if necessary, adapt their learning. Am I making good progress with my learning? What has helped me and what hasn't? Am I easily distracted, e.g. by social media? Have I really understood what I have learned? How do I motivate myself to learn?

No two trainees are the same here - so everyone has to find their own way, i.e. their own learning strategy.

At least as important is the question: Do I trust myself to be able to solve difficult tasks? The key word here is self-efficacy - in other words, your trainee's conviction that they can successfully master challenging tasks on their own. The question of whether or not learning behavior is actually under one's own control is less important than the personal perception of self-efficacy. The more often trainees realize that they can also solve difficult tasks, the more motivated they will be when faced with new challenges.

As a trainer, you support your trainees in gradually acquiring their self-directed learning skills. Encourage your trainees in this by providing them with methods for planning, monitoring and reflecting on their own learning.

For example, start by integrating the eCademy daily planner into your study lists or have your trainees keep accompanying e-learning portfolios.

Our tip: In groups with a high need for learning organization, you can use so-called organizer apps such as Microsoft Planner or To Do. Here you can schedule tasks and share them with your trainees. They will receive reminders at the desired intervals as to when the task needs to be completed.