June 19, 2025

Four Steps to Effective Learning

by Our content team

Ilmicrofono Oggiono / Flickr

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In order for learning to be effective, people must fully complete the learning cycle, from planning and doing the activity to applying the learning. By following these four steps when designing and delivering all types of both individual and group training activities to members of your team, you can ensure that you guide them fully through the learning process.

Designing the Activity

If you are designing the activity as well as delivering it, use these four steps as a structure to ensure that you complete the learning cycle. Set out what you will do at each stage.

Introducing the Activity

Explain the purpose of the activity.
Go through the learning objectives.
Outline the instructions for the activity.

Doing the Activity

Your role should be to guide and support rather than to direct and control. Observe the activity, providing support and guidance if requested, but intervene only if necessary.
Observe and take note of any relevant behaviors or actions that will help to demonstrate the learning points.
If it is a group activity, ensure that participants respect and cooperate with each other. One way of doing this is by encouraging participants to create a ‘group contract’ at the beginning of the session to set out how they will work together. Such contracts frequently include clauses such as ‘we will always be honest and open with each other’, ‘we will not interrupt each other’ and ‘we will agree everything by consensus’.
Encourage participation from all participants in a group activity, although be sensitive to different learning styles and don’t push people into doing things with which they are not comfortable. Theorists and reflectors may learn more from a practical exercise through sitting back and watching rather than by being forced to take an active role, so provide ways for all types of learner to participate in an activity. In a role-play, for example, the activists and pragmatists could plan and act out their parts, and the theorists and reflectors could observe the role-play and give feedback.

Reviewing the Activity

If you are doing a group activity where participants have been working in subgroups, bring the whole group back together and discuss how the activity went.
Useful questions for the individual/group are: Was it a success? What worked well? What didn’t work so well? What did you learn? What strengths and/or weaknesses did the activity highlight? What could have been done differently?
Share the key observations that you noted during the activity to help illustrate the learning points.
Allow sufficient time for this stage, to enable the participant(s) to digest the learning from the activity, before going on to the next stage.

Applying the Learning

This stage is essential to ensure that the learning cycle is complete and that the learning transfers back to the workplace.
Guide the participant(s) into a discussion on how they can apply what they have learned. How will they change their working practices?
Try to make the applying stage as practical as possible. Rehearse the newly acquired skills/behaviors as they will be used in the workplace to help ensure that the learner(s) fully understand their purpose and application.
Agree on key actions and encourage the participant(s) to take responsibility for them.
Do not move on to this stage until participant(s) have sufficiently digested the learning from the experience in the last stage. If you don’t, you may find that they will continue to talk about what they have learned, rather than how they can apply it.
As a general rule, the reviewing and applying stages together should last at least as long as the first two stages to allow for sufficient review and transfer of the learning.