5 Ways to Make Learning Stick in Your Online Course or Training Program

TL;DR – How to Make Learning Stick in Your Online Course or Training Program
Most edupreneurs focus on making learning convenient. That’s a mistake. If you want your courses to produce real outcomes learners actually remember and apply, you need to keep them engaged and encourage them to think.

Here’s how to do it

1. Design for effort, not convenience — If the learning experience doesn’t require your learners to work, it won’t stick. Notes, practice, testing, and reflection aren’t optional extras. They’re the mechanism of learning.

2. Space the effort over time — Cramming doesn’t stick and binge learning isn’t learning. Build your course so core concepts come up repeatedly, with gaps between them that give the brain time to consolidate.

3. Design for transfer, not just completion — Learning that stays inside your course is learning that evaporates. Push learners to practice in the varied, real-world contexts where they’ll actually need the skill.

4. Let learners teach — The best way to learn something is to teach it. Build opportunities into your course for learners to explain, demonstrate, or share what they’ve learned with others.

5. Teach your learners how to learn — Most adults were never taught how to learn effectively. Highlighting text is close to useless. Help them understand what actually works — and they’ll get more out of everything you offer.

I’ve written before that the core of the business model for successful edupreneurs is empowerment, which basically comes down to asking – and answering –  questions like “How will I make life better for my learners?” and “How will I empower them to do what they want to be able to do?”

If you don’t effectively empower your learners and create real learning results, you may manage to launch a course or two, but it will be really difficult to achieve long-term success. Your learners won’t come back for more, and you won’t earn the reputation you need to keep attracting new learners.

This applies whether we’re talking about eCourses, seminars, events – really, any kind of educational experience that you offer.

So, it is incredibly important to understand how learning works, and what you can do to empower your customers as lifelong learners. This is the kind of topic that requires a book (like this one) to address fully, but as a starter, this post offers a few  recommendations based on some of the most recent research on learning.

Basically, as a good teacher, you need to understand how to support your students in being good learners. This starts with understanding the fundamentals of adult learning, but here are five approaches to help you take things further.

How To Create Learning That Actually Sticks And Drives Actual Change

Before I explain each approach in detail, let me give you a bird’s eye view of all these approaches with actionable ideas to apply them in your traaining programs.

After that, I’ll dissect each aproach in more detail.

Here’s the table:

Principle	What It Means	Actionable Steps You Can Take Right Now
1. Design for Effort, Not Convenience	Passive consumption produces no retention. The friction of working through material is not a problem to solve — it is the learning mechanism itself.	• Replace summary handouts with guided note-taking templates that have blank spaces learners fill in during the lesson. • Add a reflection prompt at the end of every module: “How does this apply to a challenge you are facing right now?” • Build a short self-assessment quiz after each section — not graded, just enough to force recall. • Require learners to write one thing they will do differently before they can advance to the next lesson.
2. Space the Effort Over Time	Cramming and binge learning feel productive but produce almost no long-term retention. The brain consolidates learning during the gaps between sessions, not during them.	• Set up a drip email sequence that revisits core concepts 3, 7, and 14 days after the original lesson. • Open every new module with a 3-question review of the previous one before introducing anything new. • Build “callback moments” into later lessons that reference earlier concepts — “Remember what we covered about X? Here’s where it shows up again.” • Use your course platform’s scheduled release feature to space modules over days rather than making everything available at once.
3. Design for Transfer, Not Just Completion	Learning that never leaves the course environment evaporates. The real test is whether learners can apply what they learned in the variable, unpredictable conditions of their actual work or life.	• Assign a “real world application” task at the end of each module — something learners do outside the course and report back on. • Ask learners to identify three specific situations in their own work where today’s lesson applies before they move on. • Vary your examples deliberately — use case studies from different industries, roles, and contexts so learners build flexible understanding rather than narrow pattern recognition. • Require a short evidence submission — a screenshot, a written reflection, or a result — to prove application happened outside the screen.
4. Make Your Students Teach	Explaining something to someone else forces a depth of processing that listening or reading never achieves. Even the expectation of having to teach changes how carefully learners engage with material.	• End each module with a “teach it back” prompt: ask learners to record a 60-second video or write a short post explaining the concept in their own words. • Build peer teaching into community discussions — assign learners to answer each other’s questions rather than always answering yourself. • Use group work assignments where each person is responsible for teaching one section to the rest of the group. • Tell learners at the start of the course that they will be expected to explain key concepts to peers — that expectation alone improves how carefully they engage from lesson one.
5. Teach Your Learners How to Learn	Most adults have never been taught that their instinctive study habits — highlighting, re-reading, passive review — are among the least effective ways to retain information. Fixing this makes everything else you teach land harder.	• Add a short “how to get the most out of this course” lesson at the very start — cover note-taking, retrieval practice, and spaced review in plain language. • Share Jeff’s 10 Ways to Be a Better Learner directly with your learners as a companion resource at enrollment. • Tell learners explicitly that highlighting and re-reading feel productive but produce weak retention — and show them what to do instead. • Recommend Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning to learners who want to go deeper — it is the most accessible treatment of learning science available and will change how they approach every course they take.

Let’s now double on each of these approaches to make your training content more engaging and result-oriented.

1. Provide Opportunities for Effort

I often work with clients who feel that making learning as convenient as possible is the key to success with adult learners. This is true only to a very limited extent.

Yes, you definitely want to make it easy for your learners to find you, find any relevant products you offer, and easily buy those products. But that’s pretty much where “convenience” ends.

If you want the actual learning experience to have an impact – by which I mean, be remembered and actually be applied in real life – the learner will have to make an effort. Period.

This means you can’t provide notes for the learner. She needs to take her own notes (and do it effectively).

If you want a deeper understanding of why adults respond to effort and autonomy in learning, the principles behind this go back to Malcolm Knowles’ andragogy framework, specifically his principles of self-concept and orientation to learning. You can read the full breakdown in our guide to Adult Learning Theory.

It also means there need to be opportunities for practicing the concepts you teach, which – particularly if you offer self-paced, online courses – may mean providing guidance to learners on how to do this independently.

there need to be opportunities for learners to test themselves in meaningful ways (what researchers call retrieval practice). The act of trying to recall something from memory, rather than re-reading it, is one of the most effective techniques for building durable retention.

Even low-stakes quizzes or self-testing prompts produce significantly better long-term recall than passive review.

Finally, encourage – indeed, require – reflection as part of your approach to teaching. Pose questions that prompt learners to connect the material you cover to their own personal situation, to what they already know, and to form ideas about how they will apply what they learn.

If you are thinking some learners will be turned off by having to put in this much effort and may even resist, you are, of course, right. But do you really want those learners to stick around? The learners who will rave about you, who will come back for more, and bring others with them are the ones who are willing to put in effort.

Just think of the times in your own life when you have made major leaps forward in learning. Chances are it was hard, and you had a teacher who pushed you to realize your potential.

You need to be that teacher.

2. Space the Effort

Effort is essential, but for it to be really effective, it has to be spaced over time.

Cramming doesn’t stick. “Binge” learning isn’t learning. All the research and everything we know about the human brain tells us this is true.

So, design your courses and other learning  experiences so that core concepts come up repeatedly, along with opportunities for students to practice and test themselves.

This may mean building review of previously covered concepts into lessons, or it could mean sending our “drip” messages (which most decent  online course platforms support) to prompt learners to answer questions or apply an idea in their work or life. (For a simple approach to this that doesn’t even require a course platform, check out this post on Google whisper courses.)

And, if you want to dig deeper on the topic  of spaced learning, I recommend you check out Spacing Learning Over Time (free)  from Dr. Will Thalheimer, which is linked to here.

3. Set the Stage for Transfer

The key problem with a lot of educational experiences is that the learning evaporates once the learner exits the classroom – whether that’s an actual classroom or an online course. To combat that problem, you have to encourage and guide learners to practice and apply what they are learning in a range of relevant situations.

There is a lot evidence that it helps to vary the context in which you study or practice if you want to be able to apply what you learn as flexibly as possible. It is one thing, for example, to develop a great forehand in tennis when a backboard is your opponent. It is quite another to play against a range of other players of varying capabilities, or to play on different types of courts, or in different types of weather.

If you really want to become a great tennis player, you need to be able to adapt to all of the variations and many more. The only way to develop this ability is by putting your forehand through its paces in many different contexts.

In general, learners need to practice and review in ways that corresponds to how they will ultimately use whatever you teach. This is the only way that what you teach will transfer from theory into practice, from the classroom into the reality of the learner’s situation.

As someone designing a course or other learning experience, you need to think about how can you challenge your learners to apply whatever you are teaching in different contexts. For online courses, in particular, you have to think beyond the screen.

Put yourself in the learner’s shoes and think of the many context in which what you are teaching may apply. Then, provide guidance to the learner for practice in these contexts – and possibly even require some sort of evidence or report on the experience as an assignment in your course.

(All of this, of course, requires effort on the part of the learner, as discussed above, and also requires a certain amount of seeking stress.)

For practical strategies on how to structure lessons, handle group dynamics, and keep adult learners engaged during delivery, see our guide on How to Teach Adult Learners.

4. Make Your Students Teach

You may have heard that the best way to learn something is to teach it. There’s plenty in the research about learning – starting with the fact that learning requires effort – to suggest it’s true. Baking in opportunities for your learners to teach is a surefire way to make sure your educational products have a lasting impact.

Of course, this approach may seem impractical in the case of some types of educational offerings – for example, online courses or high volume seminars. But keep in mind that teaching opportunities can often be baked into group work or into online community discussions. Or, teaching may simply take the form of having students  submit an instructional video or educational blog post as part of the course.

And, it’s useful to know that even the mere expectation of having to teach can boost learning significantly, as I discuss in this Mission to Learn post.

5. Teach Your Audience How to Learn

Finally, one of the best ways to empower your learners is to teach them to learn effectively.

If you think about your own experience in school, the chances are pretty good that you were never really taught how to learn effectively. In fact, it’s been only in the last decade or so that we’ve really started to reach consensus about what works in learning.

This is knowledge that our learners need, and the majority of them (at least those who have any sense!) will thank you for taking the time to share any knowledge and skills you can in this area.

Most learners, for example, are likely to be unaware of the points I’ve covered above.

They probably don’t know how to take notes effectively or that simply highlighting and reviewing text is close to useless.

They almost certainly don’t know how to develop a strategy for getting the most out of your educational products. You can help them. And, again, the learners who are likely to be most valuable to your business will thank you for it.

For more guidance in this area – and, for that matter  – everything I’ve covered above, I suggest Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning as well as my own 10 Ways to Be a Better Learner.

Design Learning That Makes an Impact

My whole focus here is on the idea of a “learning revolution.” For me, that means that people with something to teach, people who have valuable knowledge to share, now have more power to do it than ever before. As a result, prospective learners have more opportunities than ever before.

And, all of that’s fantastic.

But it’s also my view that anyone who is going to try to make money from offering education to adult lifelong learners has a responsibility to deliver results.

There are, of course, plenty of people who will not achieve positive change from what you offer no matter how hard you try. But for those who are willing to make an effort, any of us who offer education have a responsibility to make the experiences we offer as effective as possible.

Pursue the practices I’ve outlined here, and you will be well on your way.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What does “making learning stick” actually mean?

It means designing learning experiences where knowledge is retained long after the course ends and can be applied in real situations outside the learning environment. Most online courses produce short-term familiarity with content. Making learning stick means producing genuine, durable understanding that changes how learners think or act in their work and life.

Why do most online courses fail to produce lasting results?

Because they are designed for convenience and completion rather than for retention and transfer. Learners passively watch videos, skim provided notes, and move through modules without being required to actively process, practice, or apply what they are learning. Passive consumption feels like learning but produces almost no long-term retention.

What is spaced learning and why does it matter for online courses?

Spaced learning means distributing practice and review across time rather than covering everything in one session. The brain consolidates learning during the gaps between sessions, not during them. In an online course, this means revisiting core concepts in later modules, using drip email sequences to prompt recall, and spacing module releases rather than making everything available at once.

What is learning transfer and how do you design for it?

Learning transfer is the ability to apply what you learned in your course to real situations outside of it. Most courses fail at transfer because they only ask learners to demonstrate understanding inside the course environment. To design for transfer, you need to assign real-world application tasks, vary the contexts and examples you use, and require learners to produce evidence that they applied the skill outside the screen.

Why is peer teaching so effective for learning retention?

When learners explain a concept to someone else, they are forced to process it at a much deeper level than listening or reading requires. They have to organize their understanding, identify gaps, and find words for ideas they may only half-grasp. Research consistently shows that even the expectation of having to teach something — before actually doing it — significantly improves how carefully learners engage with material.

What study habits should online course creators warn learners about?

Highlighting and re-reading are the two most common study habits adults rely on, and both produce weak retention. They feel productive because they are easy and familiar, but they require almost no active processing. More effective alternatives include retrieval practice (testing yourself before reviewing), spaced review, taking notes in your own words, and explaining concepts back to someone else.

How is this different from just increasing course completion rates?

Completion is a metric of activity, not learning. A learner can complete every module of your course and retain almost nothing if the design is passive. The goal of making learning stick is to produce genuine change in knowledge, skill, or behavior — not just a certificate of completion. Completion rates matter for your business metrics. Learning outcomes matter for your reputation and your learners’ results.

Can these principles apply to live training and workshops, not just online courses?

Yes, completely. Spaced learning, deliberate effort, transfer design, peer teaching, and teaching learners how to learn are all principles grounded in how human memory works — not in any specific delivery format. They apply equally to live workshops, corporate training sessions, seminars, and coaching programs.