A Comprehensive Learning Blog | Digital Learning

4 Ways Digital Learning Improves the Professional Learner Journey

Written by BenchPrep Team | Jan 15, 2019 3:26:54 PM

A professional’s path to receiving a certification can take a year or more, from deciding to pursue the credential to taking the exam. Is your organization providing the support these time-strapped learners need to stay focused and show up feeling confident on exam day?

For today’s professionals, preparing for a high-stakes certification exam means spending months learning the material and test-taking strategies, often while trying to juggle a career and personal life. Without the right preparation strategy, these professionals can become overwhelmed, perform poorly on the exam, or even drop out of the process altogether. That’s why more organizations are turning to digital learning to make studying more convenient, accessible, and effective for modern workers.  

Here’s a closer look at how your own organization can leverage digital learning effectively.

Building a foundation for a fulfilling career

For many professionals, earning a credential is a prerequisite for entering their field or advancing their career. The Gallup study shows 41 percent of Americans in their prime working years have a professional certification of some kind in industries as diverse as healthcare, education, technology, and social services. Job opportunities are growing rapidly in many of these fields, with healthcare and high-tech fields among those poised for the most growth according to the Labor Department’s projections for employment in 2029. That means solid prep strategies will be in high demand as more professionals look to ace these high-stakes exams.

Along with the time commitment, certifications are often expensive, giving workers an added incentive to pass on the first try. As they embark on their certification journeys, many learners find that traditional prep methods just don’t work for them. Attending a weekly in-person course or remembering to tote around a textbook can be inconvenient for busy professionals. With millennials now making up 35% of the workforce, the biggest percentage of any generation, these digital natives also expect a prep experience that mirrors the intuitive technologies they use at work and at home.

Learners who struggle to find the time to prep or to master content successfully are at risk of abandoning their certification plans, putting a damper on their professional future, and taking a bite out of revenues for prep organizations. With lifelong learning becoming a bigger part of the professional landscape, many organizations realize it’s time to cater to changing learner needs.

A certification journey designed around the learner

To meet those needs, many organizations are making the shift to online learning. A personalized, digital learning platform, like BenchPrep, can help drive engagement and readiness by putting the power in the learner’s hands.  

BenchPrep provides on-demand learning designed for the way professionals want to learn today, keeping them motivated throughout the certification process and more likely to make it to the finish line. For example, after CompTIA launched its recertification program with BenchPrep, the IT association re-certified 15,000 additional professionals within a year while boosting program revenues by 20%.  

Here are four ways BenchPrep is changing the professional certification journey for the better:

  • Bite-sized learning: Whether a professional has 10 extra minutes during their lunch break or while waiting to pick up their child from soccer practice, they can easily log into BenchPrep from any device to squeeze in a lesson. BenchPrep uses the power of microlearning to help learners maximize study time, while also breaking concepts down into more digestible chunks.
  • Up-to-the-minute feedback: When study time is limited, it’s essential to use it wisely. BenchPrep’s dashboard offers instant insight into areas the learners have mastered and areas they need to revisit, along with overall progress, time until the exam, and other details to keep them on track.
  • Social features: If a learner gets stuck on a particular question, they can ask other learners for ideas and study techniques directly in the platform. Features like discussion groups deliver the collaboration of a classroom course, while leaderboards introduce an element of friendly competition.
  • Baked-in gamification: Four out of five learners say that games help them stay more engaged while they’re learning. BenchPrep offers a variety of gamification features, including achievement badges and seven built-in games, to make studying feel less like studying.  

Check out our video to see how BenchPrep can help your organization support professionals successfully through each step of the certification journey.