“Learning becomes increasingly difficult with age” – Myth or Truth? We answer this question in the article and show you the tricks that make learning in the workplace easier at any age.
Whether at work or in everyday life: Older people often face the prejudice that they can no longer learn new things quickly. If an older employee makes a mistake, it is often attributed to their age. We discuss in this article that this is not true.
Learning is always possible
Learning researcher Christian Stamov Roßnagel from the University of Bremen explains in an interview with Zeit what the reality looks like:
"Older people often even outshine younger ones because they can integrate new information into their larger existing knowledge more easily."
Stamov Roßnagel also has an explanation for the myth: Many older people signal on their own that learning at their age is impossible and continuously find excuses for why they cannot learn anything new. Therefore, it does not fail due to capability, but rather due to motivation!
This illustrates that the assumption “older people learn worse” is a misunderstanding – unfortunately, this leads to discrimination against older employees in many workplaces:
"The ability to learn itself does not actually diminish, at most the speed of learning slows down a bit. Even at the age of 70, the differences compared to younger individuals are often so small that there is no reason to assign older employees tasks that are, for example, less significant."
Nonetheless, there are some tricks to make learning easier and faster in old age. With enough time, older individuals can quickly surpass younger ones – because they have a crucial advantage: experience.
"The broader, more comprehensive, and more complicated the challenges are, the smaller the differences between older and younger individuals."
This is how learning works for older employees
Now we come to the tips for easy learning in later life! Of course, these tricks also help young learners, but they are especially important for older employees:
5 tips that make the learning process easier for both old AND young:
Learning must take place regularly and should ideally be firmly integrated into daily life or work life.
The motivation to learn is often not as high among older employees as it is among younger ones: Set intermediate or goal-oriented milestones to maintain learning motivation as long as possible.
Draw on existing knowledge and experience and connect new learning content with already established topics.
It has always been said in school: “Write it down, then you will remember it better” – in this sense: Have your employees take notes.
Repetitions and variations in the learning process help with particularly complex content.
Flashcards as support – this also works digitally
Flashcards remain a popular tool to support oneself in learning – this works very well even in older age. However, they do not always have to be in paper form and can be created wonderfully digitally nowadays.
Many companies, academies, and trainers use digital learning platforms or Learning Management Systems (LMS) like blink.it. In such systems, you can create small learning units in the style of flashcards. The above illustration shows what this looks like, for example, in the blink.it learning platform. The advantage: Your employees are not reliant on paper cards, but can access the learning content online anytime, anywhere.
Such small learning units in microlearning style can further support learning in old age. If you use various media formats and repeat content multiple times, you can significantly support the learning process even for older employees.
We hope that this article has provided you with useful information and wish you much success with your online courses for all age groups!
