Focus on Action in eLearning Design
My job involves coaching and mentoring a great many instructional designers - both within our own eLearning development projects and as a service for many of our clients. One of the biggest challenges I face in this regard is getting designers to get to the essence of a training challenge and cut out all extraneous content that detracts from the main learning objectives. Less is indeed more when we can get from A to B in a short, straight line.
I recently came across an excellent technique called "action mapping" that I will start using to help focus eLearning on intended outcomes based on desired actions. Cathy Moore, in her very informative blog (Ideas for Lively eLearning), lays out succinctly how action mapping can work in this slideshow:
Moore advocates an approach to eLearning design that works backward from the intended business goal (expressed as an action). This avoids the trap of a linear information content dump and piling up irrelevant information that does not really help learners get to the desired goal. Action mapping is a four-step process as follows:
1. Identify the business goal.
2. Identify what people need to do to reach that goal.
3. Design activities that help people practice each behaviour (the "to do's" noted in #2).
4. Identify the minimum information people need to complete each activity.
By starting with a clear goal and focusing on required actions to reach that goal, we can provide a great deal more focus to our learning design and avoid the information dump that unfortunately characterizes much of eLearning today.
I recently came across an excellent technique called "action mapping" that I will start using to help focus eLearning on intended outcomes based on desired actions. Cathy Moore, in her very informative blog (Ideas for Lively eLearning), lays out succinctly how action mapping can work in this slideshow:
SlideShare">
Moore advocates an approach to eLearning design that works backward from the intended business goal (expressed as an action). This avoids the trap of a linear information content dump and piling up irrelevant information that does not really help learners get to the desired goal. Action mapping is a four-step process as follows:
1. Identify the business goal.
2. Identify what people need to do to reach that goal.
3. Design activities that help people practice each behaviour (the "to do's" noted in #2).
4. Identify the minimum information people need to complete each activity.
By starting with a clear goal and focusing on required actions to reach that goal, we can provide a great deal more focus to our learning design and avoid the information dump that unfortunately characterizes much of eLearning today.
posted by Rick Nigol at 6:57 PM
8 Comments:
I like the action mapping perspective. Most e-learning materials must and should address the needs and wants, otherwise you are not doing your job. Tackling the needs and wants is what I think this presentation depicts. But the million dollar question from the client is "how different are you from the others?". I think most companies in the process of being different have incorporated 'nice to have' information and that is what has led to information overload. I presume some clients like it that way.
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Hi Ashirwad:
Thanks for your comments and perspective.
Actually, I am finding quite the opposite this days....no one has time or patience for the "nice-to-know" material. Most clients I deal with are very happy when we can cut back a training program to its essence.
Rick
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Rick, we follow a similar instructional strategy for all our courses. We begin with a contextual inquiry, a step that helps us identify our learner needs, wants, and motivations & define the learning objectives.
At every step of the course, we map it to see if it meets the learning objectives. So things that are not relevant from the learning perspective do not get included in the course. Details on our methodology can be accessed at:
elearning.kern-comm.com
Hi Rashmi:
I agree with your approach. Sometimes convincing clients on what to leave out (i.e. that which is not immediately relevant to the learner) is the hardest job...
Rick
Nice blog,this will help a lot of people with your action mapping in four-step porcess. i was also looking for e-learning links, and i wanted to share with yuo eleapsoftware , it might help also. Anyway, I hope elearning will continue to serve for the right purpose.
nice e-learning presentation. It would have been interesting to see it live.
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