We're here to fix that.

Despite the name, traditional Learning Management Systems are not, in fact, about learning. A traditional LMS is not much different from a Content Management System. 

Most Learning Management Systems allow you to store and present information. The learning side of the equation is left up to the individual.

That's where Cerego is different. Cerego's adaptive learning platform leverages cognitive science and machine learning to improve retention of the material, and build lasting, useful knowledge. This means that Cerego is ideally suited to education, as is clear from our work with the NYU School of Dentistry. But it also makes Cerego an ideal complement, or replacement, for a corporate learning management system.

In fact, our work with Consensus, a Target subsidiary, is just one example that shows how Cerego can make an immediate and measurable difference in the business world.

In the past, Consensus used traditional employee training methods, like printouts and slide deck presentations, to train new employees. And the results were predictable—statistics show that, across the board, people forget roughly 70% of new information within 24 hours.

In order to train new employees more quickly and cost effectively, Consensus worked with Cerego to enrich their learning content offerings. In addition to the Cerego web platform, Consensus can now provide training and support via the Cerego mobile apps, continuing and reinforcing the learning process beyond the classroom.

That increased access, paired with Cerego's personalized learning algorithm, means both instructors and employees are happier and better prepared. From the instructor perspective, it's easy to create or upload content, build courses, and even see how your trainees are progressing with the material. From the perspective of the employee, Cerego's platform personalizes the learning process, determining both the difficulty and the timing of study sessions for each individual learner.

How it works

The Cerego platform was built on well established scientific theory, going back to Hermann Ebbinghaus's study of memory from the late 19th century. As Ebbinghaus established, people forget information at a predictable rate. This rate is now commonly known as 'the forgetting curve.'

Cerego combines established cognitive science with machine learning, which results in a scalable, personalized learning experience. When a learner begins a course on Cerego, she will be asked to recall information throughout the session. This process both helps establish a baseline for her memory within the platform, as well as strengthens her retention of the information.

With the initial review complete, Cerego's personalized learning algorithm will determine when to schedule the next review of the material, and how difficult to make that review. All of this happens without the instructor having to build separate reviews, or assign tests.

Millions of learning interactions with the Cerego platform have shown that even performing one review of course material dramatically increases retention versus only studying. That increased retention is a result of what is known as the 'testing effect,' or retrieval practice. And, counterintuitively, that positive effect on retention holds true even if the learner gets the answers wrong. Then, Cerego leverages the principle of distributed learning, in combination with the forgetting curve and the learner's past performance, to determine the timing for the next review.

As our statistics show, learners who complete even a single review perform dramatically better when tested 3 or even 6 weeks later. But those who perform as many as 4 reviews had a retention rate of nearly 90% after 6 weeks.

Each review can be as little as 5 minutes. And, thanks to the Cerego mobile apps, those reviews can be completed virtually anytime, anywhere. Indeed, in a 2017 study of Cerego data, people who used the Cerego mobile apps learned more effectively than those who only used our desktop platform. The three main reasons for this were:

  • Mobile learners did twice as much practice
  • Mobile learning sessions tended to be shorter
  • Mobile learners stuck closer to their Cerego schedule

It may seem obvious, but more practice does mean higher retention. What may not be as obvious is that those practice sessions should be short, and timely.

Mobile devices naturally lend themselves to these short review sessions, and people tend to respond more quickly to push notifications than to emails. Taken together, those two factors meant that mobile learners followed their Cerego schedules more closely, and took advantage of shorter intervals to perform more reviews. You could easily perform a Cerego review while waiting for the bus, for example.

Why it matters

As we've established, most corporate training or LMS software is based on an antiquated approach to learning. It's not enough to just have the information available. In order to build retention, and ultimately useful knowledge, is a course that includes both distributed learning and retrieval practice.

With Cerego, instructors can build courseware in a simple, straightforward way, and leverage our Smart Create™ features to automatically build review questions. Then, once their course is complete, instructors can monitor learner progress and performance through Cerego's analytics dashboards.

It's a system that both reduces instructor time by approximately 50%, while also improving outcomes for learners. In the Cerego pilot study with the NYU School of Dentistry mentioned above, students achieved a pass rate of 100%, "2.6 standard deviations above the national average of dental schools (beating their previous average)."

Not only that, but learners actually enjoy using Cerego. That's important, because increased engagement in the learning process means you're more likely to build lasting, useful knowledge.

In a study called Project Hope, a team of researchers from the City University of New York, New York University, and Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul used Cerego as part of a program to support Syrian refugee children in Turkey. The results speak for themselves:

"Of all the interventions, Cerego was rated by participants as the most enjoyable (78% liked it) and most effective (82% felt they learned from it)." —from "How Education Brings Hope To Refugee Children," by Barbara Kurshan for Forbes

That real-world impact emphasizes the power of e-learning courses and cloud-based LMS, since students in remote areas are able to access the course materials. But the Cerego adaptive learning system adds an extra layer, strengthening retention and proficiency in a way that students recognize and appreciate. And, despite the negative associations that some students may have with tests or quizzes, 78% of the students polled said they found Cerego, with its automated reviews and retrieval practice, to be the most enjoyable intervention.

The future of learning

While there is much debate about the role of the Internet in education, we know from experience that knowledge is not something we can outsource. It is convenient to have reference information at your fingertips, but simply having the information is not the same as knowing it: Foundational knowledge is a requirement that allows for creativity, critical thinking, and effective communication. Being knowledgeable also helps you to learn and retain new information more effectively.

With Cerego, the steps to create courses, learn new material, and retain information are all wrapped into a single experience. Much more than conventional training courses, Cerego not only offers the ability to store and present your courses to learners but also builds in a science-backed learning process that is proven to improve retention and increase effectiveness, all while saving you time.

To learn more about how Cerego works, contact us.