Publication: Integrated Learnings: eLearning

Summary: When creating instructor-led training, most instructional designers instinctively follow an activity with reflective discussion questions to cement lessons learned. However, post-activity reflection is often neglected in eLearning. This article explains why this reflection is necessary and suggests ways to incorporate it into eLearning.

A debrief also opens the door to manager involvement. For instance, you might provide learners with debriefing questions to think about, letting them know that their managers will schedule time soon to discuss their ideas. Alternatively, a lesson might prompt learners to discuss their responses using social media or in a brief virtual session with a facilitator.

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Publication: eLearn Magazine

Summary: Whether you design classroom training, eLearning, m-learning, or work with another medium entirely, storytelling is a learning tool that possesses the power to motivate, persuade, educate, and even entertain. This article describes how learning theory supports storytelling, how to craft a story, and ways to design stories into eLearning lessons.

Cleverly crafted stories stimulate an emotional response to training content, such as a desire to help, curiosity about how something works, or a drive to achieve. Thus, the story helps persuade learners to engage in the training and ultimately perform the desired behaviors. When written in a conversational tone (and with a pinch of humor, if you have a knack for that), stories can even entertain.

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Publication: Integrated Learnings: eLearning

Summary: Writing precise and effective performance objectives for training includes specifying criteria for successful performance. Most resources suggest that a criterion must be measurable – ideally, associated with an objective number. Since this is not feasible for all performance objectives, this article suggests descriptive alternatives to use as criteria.

Many of the resources that explain how to write objectives suggest that a criterion should be specific and objectively measurable. Ideal candidates include just about any measure you can associate with a number – defect levels, speed/time, quantity quotas, etc. Like in the example above. This makes perfect sense. But most of my projects include several objectives with behaviors that aren’t directly countable.

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Summary: Last year I wrote several contributions for the recently released city guide for Sherman, Texas. An online version is not available; however, I’ve included an image of one piece from the guide here.

Publication: Integrated Learnings: eLearning

Summary: The principles that coaches follow to work with children’s soccer teams also apply to writing feedback for eLearning scenarios. This article urges instructional designers to go beyond telling learners that an answer to a question is “incorrect,” and it suggests methods for working coaching techniques into feedback.

This approach could also feed into a larger remediation strategy for struggling learners. For instance, learners who answer all questions correctly might only need to complete a couple of scenarios. Learners who answer several questions incorrectly could move into another segment of training with additional practice scenarios. In doing so, you might transition to the remediation portion with a slide that reminds learners of key content, urges them to apply lessons learned from earlier scenarios to the ones that follow, and offers an encouraging statement about their probable success.

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Publication: Integrated Learnings: eLearning

Summary: eLearning courses often end with a slide that lists the topics covered during training. However, the recency principle suggests that instructional designers can use these last moments of training more effectively to help learners remember key content. This article suggests memorable ways to end an eLearning course while effectively reinforcing its content.

Illustrative story. We’ve talked about using stories to convey tacit knowledge in eLearning. Similarly, a story that illustrates application of key concepts offers an effective and easy-to-remember way to summarize content. If it includes humor, even better.

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Publication: Integrated Learnings: eLearning

Summary: In many circles, eLearning has a bad reputation as a text dominated page-turner. Although instructional designers realize that images can enhance learning efficiency and effectiveness, many miss opportunities to replace text with meaningful images. This article suggests three cues that prompt the use of images instead of text.

You can also use an interactive diagram like this as a hint for learners. When prompting them to practice with a scenario or activity, including a mini version of the diagram on the slide can allow learners to hover over the steps to remind themselves of what they need to do to complete the practice activity successfully. Kind of like a job aid within the training.

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Publication: Journey Beyond Travel: Morocco Travel Guide

Summary: Studying abroad in Morocco offers students more enriched and numerous cultural experiences than a typical visitor gains from a brief vacation. This article describes the types of learning experiences international students can expect, how to find out about study abroad opportunities in Morocco, and an alternative for non-college students.

Studying in Morocco for university credit is not the only option—many programs also exist that focus on learning Arabic and providing cultural experiences for anyone who’s interested. These programs tend to offer a few hours of daily language instruction with optional cultural activities. And rather than committing to a semester, year or summer session, many language immersion programs let their students choose the length of their course—often ranging from a couple of weeks to several months.

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Publication: Integrated Learnings: eLearning

Summary: Training professionals promote storytelling as a way to engage learners and relay tacit knowledge. Although storytelling is a skill that many inherently possess, instructional designers often struggle to incorporate stories into eLearning lessons. This article describes five approaches to designing a story into eLearning.

Who doesn’t enjoy a snappy comic strip? Comics offer a relatively quick read, an effective method for displaying dialog, and a visually engaging format. If the rest of an eLearning lesson follows a standard, templated look, using fun images can contribute to the story’s attention-grabbing effect. It also opens the door to a more informal writing style…even a bit of humor.

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Publication: Integrated Learnings: eLearning

Summary: Inspired by another article about innovation, this piece takes the advice of how to inspire new ideas and translates it into instructional design techniques that can inspire learners during training. 

Granted, people naturally tend to reflect on their experiences to some extent. But if our training is too fast paced, learners might not get a chance to consciously recognize what they’ve learned and cement that learning. Fortunately, we can prompt learners to reflect through individual activities, confidence measures, and insightful discussions.Social media in training can work wonders for this, too.

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