Every New Year, one of the most common resolutions made is to get fit and the first thing most of us do is to hit the local gym!
In the first few weeks of January I am sure almost all gyms and fitness centers around the world are seeing a surge in enquiries and enrollments from people starting workouts with a lot of enthusiasm.
As is with most resolutions, once the initial euphoria wears out and reality starts taking over in a couple of months (if not weeks), slowly the frequency of workouts reduces and so does the pace and by the time we realize it, the resolution and its paraphernalia are renegaded to a distant memory- only to be revived at the next new year.
 So what has it got to do with e-learning?  
              Well!.. there is one thing common to both of them:
Gradual Dropout!
 Ask any gym or an e-learning manager: the one thing they would love to find a formula for is to stop people from dropping out gradually.
 While there is no magic potion to prevent people from dropping out of gyms or e-learning courses, there surely are a few strategies and hacks to help people complete what they started-without loosing steam and here are a couple of them:
 1. Give them something to share; people to share with and a reason to share.
Communities have played a very important role in learning since time immemorial and technology has only made it much easier to connect with people with common learning objectives spread across diverse geographies.
 Irrespective of whether it's a single module or a complete e-learning course, establishing and actively moderating a focused community provides a tremendous peer support and P2P learning. Try it- you will love it!
 2. Events to jump back in.
Corporate life is usually full of deadlines, shifting priorities and of-course the occasional contingencies and fire-fighting. Irrespective of how-much-ever dedicated one is towards an e-learning course one of these is bound to get the better of many people- leading to a potential dropout.
 The solution?
 When someone falls; the most important thing is to help them bounce back as soon as possible.
One very simple and interesting way of helping potential dropouts to bounce back is to have milestones across the course comprising of virtual events or refresher sessions where learners can join for a live-online session with experts to get abreast with other learners and also enhance their motivation to get back into the groove. A few focused events add a lot of buzz to the courses and help learners to pick up pace.
If you have read this blog post till here: Thanks for not dropping out!
 I shall be sharing many more practical techniques to minimize gradual dropouts from e-learning course at my forthcoming webinar this month.
Meanwhile, if you have implemented some interesting strategies and have experienced reduction in dropout rates in your e-learning courses, feel free to share them here. If they have worked for you; they can surely work for many more e-learning professionals too!