Instructional Design

This week’s term was prompted by a thread I read recently about acronyms. Don’t see the connection? I’ll explain it to you in a few – don’t worry!

Target Audience

Your target audience is anyone who will be participating in the e-learning program you are developing. This is a very small detail, usually discussed in a client’s Statement of Work or a Design Document (or sometimes not at all), but it makes a huge impact on the development of your training materials.

For example, the training materials you develop for a group of 18-21 year old students will likely be different than those developed for a group of 50-60 year old women. For the 18-21 year olds, you might use a more colloquial manner of text or you might use a more interactive, game-based interface. For the 50-60 year old women, you would likely recognize their prior learning experiences and explain the content in a more professional manner.

It is essential to understand and consider your target audience in order to create effective learning experiences!

I’m a huge supporter of conducting an instructional analysis, and while not all clients will see the benefits of paying for anything indicative of an ‘analysis’ phase (many clients may feel as though they’ve conducted this portion), it’s still important as an Instructional Designer to ensure you’re conducting a brief instructional analysis – even if it’s just in your head. If the target audience hasn’t been defined by the client, ASK!

Alright. So how does this connect with acronyms?

Regardless of your target audience  you need to avoid use of industry jargon whenever possible. You need to take yourself outside of your industry body and put yourself in the shoes of your target audience. Do they know what TNA means? Because to you, it’s a Training Needs Analysis, but to them it could be an offensive term used to describe several body parts or a popular retail store.

When using acronyms, ensure you are spelling out the first instance of each acronym; this will ensure that your target audience does not become lost in a sea of acronyms, leaving the training more confused than anything. Another suggestion, in acronym or jargon heavy training materials, would be to include a glossary of acronyms or terms; this will provide your target audience with a resource to consult if ever they find themselves confused.

I first came across the concept of adaptive learning when working at my last corporate gig. Someone had a pie-in-the-sky type of idea for moving into adjacent markets, and adaptive learning would give us a HUGE competitive edge. I say pie-in-the-sky because, at the time, the organization could certainly not fund something so new to us. This past weekend, I came across the term again – this time in the context of its increasing popularity. If it’s becoming more popular, I figured we should probably talk about and get to know the term a little bit more.

What is Adaptive Learning?

Adaptive learning is an educational approach which uses technology to create individualized learning experiences. Computer programs, which work diligently to collect data, adapt the material presented based on the user’s learning needs (which are dictated by their responses and interactions with the computer program).

Sounds creepy? Yeah, a little. I sort of liken adaptive learning to the way in which advertisements on websites are adapted based on your browsing history. While it might be creepy, it’s also really cool!

Why is Adaptive Learning Cool?

Adaptive learning is pretty neat, in my opinion, because it allows students to step outside of the traditional face-to-face classroom environments, where teachers are often times over-saturated with the amount of students per class, leading to very generalized teaching (in most cases). Teachers have it tough! And it can be incredibly difficult for them to veer from traditional teaching methods to make learning an individualized experience for each and every student.

Many teacher friends of mine who have taught in the K-12 school system are incredibly frustrated; because of the ‘no child left behind’ concept, kids are being pushed through, regardless of which grade level they’re functioning at. This results in lower-level learners struggling further with the curriculum. Another problem is that it’s getting to the point where teachers are becoming responsible for developing Individualized Education Plans for more than half of their students per class – Doing this is understandable in that the education system wants to cater (as much as possible) to student’s needs, but it also takes a lot of time on the individual teacher’s side of things, which may lead to increased rate of teacher burn-out. Frustrating, no?!

Adaptive learning may be a solution to such a problem, saving teacher resources and frustration!

The only questionable aspect of adaptive learning that I have found is that implementation may be incredibly costly, so institutions really need to recognize the need and the ultimate cost savings on human resources (and ultimately increase in return on investment), before it will ever gain mainstream traction.

Examples, please!

There’s really only one key example that I want to share – Knewton is a technological platform designed to personalize “digital courses so every student is engaged and no one slips through the cracks.” Using analytics, learning gaps are predicted and the presentation of educational materials are adapted to satisfy these learning gaps. HOW COOL IS THAT?!

A more rudimentary example could be a choose your own adventure book; while not necessarily ‘learned’, the outcome is dependent  on (or predicted by) the reader’s choices. Who didn’t enjoy a good choose your own adventure book? Come on!

This week is one of the first wherein Terminology Tuesday hasn’t been prompted by a specific event or discussion the previous week. Instead, I considered some of the challenges new faculty member struggle with when attempting to convert their traditional face-to-face courses to distance or blended learning.

A primary challenge is how to ditch the concept of chalk-and-talk and allow students ample opportunity to interact with one another and construct knowledge together, in close facilitation with the faculty member. Because not everyone is well-versed in learning technologies, this can seem like a daunting task. Some faculty members struggle with understanding that their students don’t need to be in the same physical location to participate in group work or to collaborate with one another (and/or the faculty member), but once they see their distance course in action, they have context with which to change their tune. You can teach an old (or young) dog new tricks!

Collaborative Learning

Collaborative learning is an instructional approach that requires students to work closely with one another, often participating in group work. The educator is responsible for providing the information to the students, but the students must work collaboratively to apply the learned information when completing activities, assignments, or projects. The educator will monitor the students to ensure that the learned information is being applied correctly, but they typically act as an observer within a collaborative learning environment and less of an enforcer.

When you think about it, collaborative learning feeds on the concept of constructivism in that multiple individuals are pooling their experiences and ‘resources’ (e.g. prior learning) to learn the subject matter together.

If you really want to get specific, collaborative learning is deep-seated in Lev Vygotsky’s concept of ‘zone of proximal development’, which indicates that individuals will learn information from one another (in Vygotsky’s case, he was specifically talking about children modelling their behaviours after adults) simply by learning like information near one another.

With the emergence of Web 2.0 (more on that in another week), education is bursting at the seams with technologies that enhance collaborative approaches (e.g. wikis, blogs, social media, etc.), and this doesn’t apply to just the education sector.

Technology examples, please!

Off the top of my head, I can think of several technologies that are used to enhance learning: Blackboard Collaborate (used for real-time VOIP classes), Twitter, Adobe Connect.

As for examples that don’t specifically pertain to the education sector (but which can also be used), I’m drawn to technologies such as: Google Hangouts, Google Drive, Dropbox, and any Webinar application.

Resources

Still confused? Aching for more information? Perhaps you want to write your thesis on Collaborative Learning. Here you go:

– What is Collaborative Learning and Why is it Important?

– Collaborative Learning 

– Group Work and Collaborative Learning (Ryerson University)

– 20 Collaborative Learning Tips and Strategies for Teachers

– Zone of Proximal Development

– Zone of Proximal Development and Scaffolding in the Classroom