The Pivotal Era of Learning: How Sana Labs Uses AI to Reimagine Learning for Your Workforce
Personalized learning has long been the holy grail in corporate learning. A study commissioned by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Kim, An, 2014) showed that personalized learning improved learning outcomes by 50%. Similarly, Bloom (1984) found that the average privately tutored learner reached higher summative achievement than 98% of the learners in the control group of non-tutored learners. Yet, few companies have implemented personalization at scale.
Corporations’ failure to adapt to individual needs has led to 60% of corporate learners finding the misalignment between learning and their skills gaps to be a core learning issue (Degreed, Harvard Business Publishing, 2019). With the ever-increasing complexity of jobs in the workplace, coupled with the expected decreasing shelf-time of knowledge, the problem will only get worse over time.
Adopting new AI technology can be a powerful enabler in scalably driving business value for your organization; accelerating time to proficiency, improving learning outcomes, and driving engagement at a fraction of the cost typically used to deliver personalization e.g. 1:1 coaching sessions.
As Boston Consulting Group (2020) recently pointed out, “Few companies have yet turned their learning ecosystem into a competitive advantage. But we are convinced that those that do will be tomorrow’s winners.” At Sana Labs, we are convinced that the winners of tomorrow
- view learning as a strategic priority (e.g. by giving L&D a seat at the table),
- engrain a learning culture (e.g. by having learning as a company value), and
- use the latest technology advancements (e.g. by using personalized learning solutions) as a powerful lever to drive learning outcomes for their most business critical and in-demand skills.
When technology is coupled with the right strategy and strong processes, it can unlock immediate business value. In this white paper, we cover a few aspects of how we help customers use state-of-the-art technology powered by AI to implement value-adding learning practices.
Tailoring content to every learner’s unique needs with Adaptive Learning
No two learners are the same. That’s why no two learning paths should be the same. By formatively assessing every learner as they progress through content, Sana tailors the learning path with every interaction. Better yet, by uncovering similarities between parts of the content and estimating difficulties, Sana augments its understanding of every learner and content with every interaction, creating the optimal learning path through the content.
Colleagues that struggle in an area? No problem, Sana shows them content describing the underlying challenging concepts. Colleagues excelling in an area? No problem, Sana doesn’t show them content they already know. Colleagues that easily forget content needed in the flow of work? No problem, our lightning-fast search helps them find the most relevant content in the blink of an eye.
Closing knowledge gaps with Mastery Learning
The learning conversation needs to be changed to focus on learning outcomes instead of reporting, something that will challenge the mindset throughout the organization. Getting a question correctly after three tries doesn’t necessarily mean that a learner has learnt the underlying concept (e.g. consider the likelihood of correctly guessing if there are only three alternatives in a question). In the end, L&D professionals are accountable for driving learning outcomes that drive business outcomes, not just ensuring boxes are checked and view time is attained. If L&D doesn’t ensure and incentivize learning outcomes, the ROI of investments in learning erodes.
That’s why Sana’s Mastery model, powered by AI, estimates how well learners master every concept, and creates personalized sessions to help them practice areas of difficulty to reach Mastery. This way, learners get the support they need to master oftentimes complex topics and L&D can rest assured that the training they deliver drives meaningful learning outcomes.
Content creators decide whether all content has to be shown, or if learners can fast-track courses by answering questions correctly. We know that the business context (e.g. some involving regulation) can be different so we put content creators in the driver seat of requirements.
Improving long-term business outcomes with Spaced Repetition
The concept of knowledge decay was first described by psychologist Herman Ebbinghaus (1885) and is illustrated in the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve. A related concept states: memorization is more efficient if you space out shorter review sessions over time, rather than cramming. If a learner doesn’t review the content at all, significant memory loss is to be expected. Despite this long-known widely accepted concept, very few corporations build review into learning workflows since most learning solutions don’t provide native support for review.
Sana recommends the optimal time to review and prioritize content based on how the learner performed in the past (e.g. content the learner struggled with will be prioritized). Sana also takes into account the difficulty and the forgetting curves of the content. This way, each review session is highly adapted to the needs of every learner and every type of content.
With personalized review, learners using Sana improve long-term memory retention by up to 3x. Thus, instead of learning having a momentary effect, learning outcomes transfer into long-term business results.
The most powerful solutions for learning are the ones employees love to use
L&D needs to obsess around learner experience and “what’s in it for the learner.” All too often learning solutions have focused on admin-centered user experiences, resulting in few value driving features for learners and ultimately leading to lower engagement.
With Sana, there is a clear value proposition for your learners vs. your legacy learning solution:
- Focus only on knowledge gaps
- Get support in mastering areas of difficulty
- Brush up on acquired knowledge with personalized review sessions
All delivered in a delightful learning solution driven by our Scandinavian design ethos. Better yet, content creators find it incredibly easy and intuitive to create visually compelling content. We’re even willing to wager that they will struggle to create disengaging content.
Democratize creation of Adaptive Learning content
The prevalence of adaptive learning modules in corporations has long been enabled by branching algorithm software. By explicitly defining a series of events, content creators with subject matter expertise and deep knowledge of their learners are taking staggering steps towards creating personalized learning experiences, despite having to invest an unreasonable amount of time to only capture a fraction of the nuances in learning needs for their target audience. Let alone, creation of these modules is highly concentrated to an L&D elite and consultants possessing niche skills and the cost of maintaining these modules oftentimes surpasses the value they provide.
Sana is democratizing the creation of adaptive learning modules. Content creators no longer have to think about the different entry levels of their learners, nor the different ways they learn. With Sana, creating an adaptive learning module is as easy and intuitive as creating a linear learning module. Content creators define the relationships between questions and articles, creating the foundation for Sana’s adaptivity.
What’s ahead of us?
Corporate learning is at a pivotal point. Personalized learning approaches are getting traction, but most things remain undone (… A glorious future–homage IKEA). Automatic question generation and answering will bridge the gap between learning and knowledge management, and put learning in the flow of work. Actionable insights will be automatically personalized and delivered in real-time, putting the power of a thousand analysts in the hands of learning professionals. Learning assistants will support every learner with upskilling and reskilling based on current skills, in-demand skills and career ambitions. When all of this is taken care of, managers can instead focus on coaching and development conversations to drive individual and organizational competency.
At Sana Labs, we’ve kicked off several stealth AI research projects in these areas and the results are soon to see daylight. We are excited to open the world’s leading learning platform in your hands and explore the future of corporate learning with you today.
If you want to learn more, please send a note to samuel@sanalabs.com
