Educational entertainment is derived from education and enjoyment. This word covers any educational content with playful features to entertain. Edutainment aims to motivate learners by providing entertaining yet instructive content.
This strategy allows students to understand any subject in a language and manner they are comfortable with and motivated by. The brain remembers contemporary formats better than content, which may be the key. Edutainment incorporates both criteria because the content is always there, but in a modern format.
Science says we remember emotional or unexpected experiences because our brains are wired that way. Thus, training experiences with greater impact and emotional connection boost short- and medium-term memory retention and the likelihood of applying the acquired material.
Effective tools to include and boost this approach could be:
- Stories and firsthand accounts: People are more interested in testimonials and humanised content than technical principles. To deepen the learning, they might be combined. Even a fascinating training session with only text projections is unlikely to be remembered compared to one with storytelling based on a participant’s experience.
- Create and lead fun activities: nowadays, we get tired rapidly, regardless of age. According to HubSpot’s 2022 survey of 10,000 individuals found that the average attention span for training, conferences, lectures, etc. is 8 minutes and 25 seconds. After 30 minutes, our attention declines constantly.
- Use humour to create a calm, pleasant, and connected workplace, not just jokes.
- Interactive activities are also important for educational entertainment. Interactivity is technological but fundamentally collaborative: dynamics, role-playing, active participation, group work, sharing conclusions aloud, analysing real and relatable cases, and presenting arguments by drawing, photographing, and sharing them socially, like on social networks.
