The psychologist Abraham Maslow was best known for his theory of the hierarchy of needs. Entrepreneurs, managers, marketers and psychologists have all benefited from Maslow’s theory. But eLearning professionals too can benefit from his pyramid-style guide to human behavior.

Here are some eLearning motivation terms every eLearning course developer should know. By familiarizing yourself with these concepts, you can feel more confident that your eLearning courses will be successful and motivational.

What reaction do you get when you announce a new eLearning course to employees? Do they stand up and cheer, excited for the learning opportunities and inspiration they will gain from the eLearning course you're offering? Or do they sigh, shoulders slumped as they slink away for yet another wasted day looking through slide after slide after slide?

Winning eLearning courses come in different types and packages, each of which perfectly suits the learner. All of them, however, share notable similarities—universal traits that explain why they are effective and what makes them better than the average. Below is a quick list of traits you definitely should consider for your next project.

What works better is usually obvious. But we as humans fall for what’s easy and what’s readily available. This is especially true when it comes to designing learning materials. Course designers and developers continue doing what they’re doing because it’s convenient, not because it’s effective. Below are what we consider the four top trumps or elements that work better in eLearning.

Certainly, most of us have once attended a long and boring training session (virtual or face-to-face), where the students are merely passive observers and are given little or no opportunities to participate. The truth is, this type of instruction hardly makes an impact on the audience. For effective learning and retention you need interaction. This is what makes the experience more worthwhile and valuable for the learner.

In the world of education theory, writers and researchers talk a great deal about learning dispositions, those tendecies of great thinkers and learning that help them learn more effectively. In essence, a learner disposition is the attitude or mindset the student brings to an educational environment to make him or her more likely to retain the new information. Kratz defines dispositions as “relatively enduring habits of mind or characteristic ways of responding to experience across types of situations.”

Boring eLearning is a huge problem for learners and instructors alike. Most of students, quite understandably, avoid them like plague. Everyone in the teaching and training profession knows this. The problem is, why are people still creating boring courses?