Instructional Design

I’ve talked a bit about analysis before, but it recently dawned on me that there are a lot of components that fall under the umbrella of analysis, so I figured I’d channel my inner analyst and take a few weeks to delve a bit deeper into the topic of analysis.

Let’s Go! Analysis in Learning Development – A Refresher

Analysis is the highest level of course development. In it’s recommended format, this phase seeks to compile all information relevant to the project and 1) determine which delivery method will best display the content in a meaningful manner, 2) whether more information is required and from whom, and 3) high-level project goals.

Elements

Within this phase you may stumble upon several elements familiar to analysis (e.g. Needs Assessment, Instructional Analysis, Task Analysis, Environmental Analysis).

You can read about Needs Assessments here, and Task Analysis here.

The basic jest is that you want to collect all of the information you possibly can in order to ensure the training you’re planning to develop is 1) necessary, 2) relevant, and 3) informed. You want to thoroughly understand the performance requirements, who your audience will be, what they need to learn, and how that information will be relevant to their performance.

Strategies

There are many strategies for conducting analysis. For example, you might want to start at the end goal of the training and work backwards. This approach will allow you to identify the goal and then the steps or prerequisites required to get to achieve the goal. Another example might be to begin with a list of questions (e.g. who is the target audience? what is their prior learning? why is the training necessary?, etc.) and discover the answers to those questions in order to conduct a thorough analysis of the situation. You might wish to examine what the organization is currently doing and why it’s not working to determine a different way ahead that will work.

However you choose to analyze, just know that you’re doing very important legwork that may save you time once you get to the design and development, and certainly the evaluation phase of your course development.

Stay tuned for more on analysis next week!

 

Today I thought I’d talk about badges, because everyone likes to feel like they’re achieving something and badges are a great way of doing that.

Badges

What are badges? Well. You can probably relate to the badge reference when you think about the badges you or your friends received in brownies/girl guides/cubs/boy scouts, etc. These badges were received for achieving a certain criteria with regard to a specific goal. Take for example some of the badges I’ve achieved in the Articulate Insiders community (shown in the image above) – these badges were achieved by: finishing 50 challenges, completing 10 social media challenges, and providing a survey-style opinion. Another example you might be able to relate to: the gold stars your elementary school teacher provided on your assignments/activities for a job well done.

We see badges in many domains; for example, social (e.g. brownies/cubs) and technology (e.g. video games), but how do we begin to use badging in education?

Using Badging in Education

Badges can serve to motivate students to work harder to achieve course goals; individuals innately want to succeed, so receiving an ‘award’ of sorts for completion of an activity can make a world of difference when it comes to learner motivation.

To begin employing badging in your classroom, you will want to define goals to achieve the badges. These goals should align with your course goals and learning outcomes. Once defined, create a mode for delivering the badges. For example, in a face-to-face classroom setting, you may wish to use a physical leaderboard (e.g. a table created on bristol board of each student and each goal, with physical stickers or badges affixed to the board to indicate completion/progress). In an online course, you may wish to generate electronic certificates or an electronic leaderboard (similar to the one illustrated above) that displays each learner’s badges.

Resources

• Educause Learning Initiatives: Things you should now about…Badges
• Badge Alliance – Why Badges?
• How Badges Really Work in Higher Education by David Raths

Many Instructional Designers work in distance education (even if not directly linked to an institution), and I am one of those Instructional Designers. Within my full-time role, I assist in the development of online, hybrid, and blended courses. Within my quasi-full-time role, I develop e-learning for a variety of clients.

However, the term ‘distance education’ has taken a bit of a turn when it comes to its definition, so I thought it might be handy to discuss this. This week’s post was actually prompted by the move of our department to change their name to Online Learning, instead of Distance Education.

Distance Education

Depending on which generation you’re from, distance education could have very different meanings. Some folks may associate distance education with correspondence courses (aka snail mail coursework), broadcast courses (aka televised), or online courses. All of these associations are correct, as distance education broadly includes any educational format wherein the instructor and student are separated by geographic location and/or time.

At the institution I work at, they were a regional pioneer in distance education in the televised/broadcast format. We still have the ‘on air’ light in the department hallway! However, technology has facilitated a shift in delivery mode. We now offer distance education in online and multi-access (hybrid and blended) formats in order to cater to the needs of our students. While many programs are available entirely online, we’re always working to expand our current program and course offerings in an effort to enhance accessibility to a high-quality distance education experience.

With the emergence of Learning Management Systems (LMS’), synchronous technology (e.g. Skype, Blackboard Collaborate, Adobe Connect) and video and/or e-learning authoring technology, faculty members now have many options when it comes to developing their courses.

Distance education has become very popular over the last twenty years, and it’s certainly where education is moving simply because of how it addresses issues of accessibility and convenience. My graduate degree was completed entirely online (with the exception of one project that I painstakingly snail mailed in to a prof), and the experience I had prompted me to seek employment within higher education so I could become part of the distance education movement.

Do I think distance education will overshadow traditional education? No. There’s still a very large population of individuals who want the traditional experience perhaps due to preference or learning style, but it is great to have an option to study while not being tethered to a single location.

The only real con I would associate with distance education is that learners truly need to be self-motivated. Without that motivation, there is seldom someone else to hold the learner accountable, and it can be very easy to get off track. So when people ask me about distance education, I really cater it to the demographic. For example, it might not be the best option for first year students who have no prior experience with self-paced learning or no prior exposure to a college or university setting. At least not at the very beginning. If distance education is your only option as a first year student, that’s fine. Just know that you need to be organized and focused or things we’ll snowball out of control very fast.

I was first introduced to the 70:20:10 model from a business perspective, but it’s a great model from the learning and development perspective as well!

70:20:10

Working for an organization that went through three CEOs in a matter of five years was very overwhelming. Each had their own strengths, each had their own level of support, and each had their own new-fangled ideas. One of these CEOs introduced me to the concept of 70:20:10.

From a business perspective, this meant that the organization would focus 70% of their time and effort on core business needs, 20% of their time and effort on projects related to core business needs (e.g. moving into adjacent markets), and 10% of their time and effort on projects outside of core business needs (e.g. moving into an untouched market).

For example, we were a company working on contracts primarily within the air force, so we spent 70% of our time working on projects for the air force, 20% of our time working on or attempting to work on projects in adjacent markets (e.g. naval or army training), and 10% of our time attempting to move into uncharted (for us) markets, such as commercial air training.

But…how can this model apply to learning and development?

I think you can use this model in learning and development as a means for managing your time and effort.

Perhaps you want to learn some new skills that will benefit your role. You could spend 70% of your time pursuing learning opportunities related directly to your role (e.g. if you’re an instructional designer, perhaps you want to learn how to better organize content), 20% of your time learning a somewhat new skill (e.g. perhaps you’ve created basic graphics using powerpoint and want to learn how to use photoshop), and 10% of your time learning something completely unrelated to what you do, but which could still benefit your role (e.g. learning a programming language).

Additionally, you could apply this to your workflow management. You could spend 70% of your time working away at your deliverables, 20% of your time liaising with clients, and 10% of your time seeking new projects.

However you choose to apply the 70:20:10 model, it can be used to more effectively manage your time, which is great if you’re a micro-manager and super planner like myself!