Design Document

The one critical document that is required to promote the development of ones course is the design document. In the Instructional Design process the design document will cover the analysis of the course, identify goals, will guide the learning objectives, and help the development of the course content. In theory, the design document is created by the Design Team which collaborates in identifying the preceding elements. The course manager, instructor, SME’s, and Instructional Designer will meet to create the design document. The main sections of the design document will consider the target audience, the training needs, materials, assessment, and standard elements that will be used to instruct the course.

My experience as an instructional Designer has been to become a coach and support the project owners process. I feel it’s better to support the course manager and invoke confidence to establish an open link for communication. What is more important than the design process its the partnership it takes to work collaboratively together to create a productive document. If you have a good working environment then the design process becomes second nature to those involved. Learning to allow the owner to create the content for the course is easier than guessing as to what should be covered. When I say owner I mean the course manager or course instructor that will be presenting their version of the course structure. Designing and developing the course should be as easy as having the instructor walk the ID specialist through the course as if he would be teaching it to his students. Then you and the course manager capture that in a document that will outline and state exactly what the instructor has just presented to you. Sounds simple but time-consuming and very tedious but in the end a very productive training course will be created.

eLearning and the development process

In ISD we have the ADDIE model which most developers adhere to as well as most training personnel. With eLearning becoming more prevalent in learning departments I would like to know what the process model for creating online courses would be. I am currently supporting an eLearning Department that is fairly new and ADDIE is the model of choice. But that is the model for converting the content into script then into a eLearning course. Not in so few words but the majority of the work is developed following the ADDIE model. What I would like to know is what are some of the processes in which developers follow to get to the development part.

Is there a Planning Team that decides which courses get to be put online?Is there a Design Team that works with the SME’s and course developers that collaborate to come up with the course material? How about a eLearning Supervisor that leads all these process teams into the development process and gets everyone to buy into the course. All these gray areas that I consider relevant have not been identified for me so I am having to research and develop some of these steps in the process. If I had to come up with a working process that would help me develop such a model it would go like this.

Customer request sa course to be created into an eLearning course. The first step that I would want to take is to identify all the stakeholders that will contribute to the course material and its development . Meet with all these individuals to contract an agreement for developing the online course. I would expect them to have done all the analysis modeling upfront to eliminate the mystery of who the learner will be. The most important step would be to estimate the time ti will take in he development process. The more accurate the project can be predicted the more attainable the  timeline for delivery. This is very critical because of the many resources that will be used to create all the interaction and assessments that go into creating an engaging online course.

Then I would choose a very reliable tracking program that would capture all the tasks involved in creating the development of the course. This is more for research and cost effectiveness practices more than creating a tracking record. Being able to estimate the amount of time it takes for each step in the process will give the Manager a better understanding of how many courses he can build on a yearly basis. The better you get at this the better you can manage your yearly schedule which determines your next year’s budget.

Communicate on a daily basis the status of all your eLearning courses being developed to help determine deliverables that will be met or missed. This is very important as well for monitoring the development schedule. So far we have agreeing on the project upfront, creating a solid tracking system to measure time to delivery, and reporting on the project as it moves along to manage the commitments for the year. The last thing I would look at is the evaluation program to measure the process. Being able to come full circle once the course is online and running then revisiting the game plan will only make the process that more robust for the next course. Simple I think now just to put it down on paper as it sounds. This is going to take awhile.

eLearning and Instructional Design

What I wanted to write about today has to do with ISD and eLearning. Not on what it is or how it works but how much more analysis needs to occur before putting a course or training online. When doing an analysis for training in the classroom the majority of the time not too much attention is put on the “learner’s persona”. Most of the time the learner has already been identified either through a development program or they are new hires. But never the less in the analysis process the justification for training has already been identified. The learner either needs the course to complete a performance objective or is learning their way around the organization.

I know what your thinking but please allow me to explain. Within the ADDIE model we have  analysis that will identify the learner, the delivery, instructional methods, and whatever it take to measure knowledge, skills, and attributes. Yeah, ok but how is that different for eLearning? Well for starters when creating courses for eLearning the concentration of how much knowledge you will transfer is critical because  you don’t want to build online courses just to build them. How can we successfully measure this type of learning?  We really can’t!

The eLearning Developer or design team has to be real cognizant of identifying the psychology aspect of how to deliver the content online. For example, you can put tons of content online and have the learner just “click next” until they reach the end of the course. Now how effective and efficient would that be if we created all our courses in this manner.  For me this is the type of online learning courses that I have heard nightmares about. Students asked to sit in front of a computer and read text to no end then answer questions at the end to measure competency. What I mean about psychology is the Learning Theories that we read and study about that helped us identify the types of learning theories that make all of us fall into one  or another. I believe that this aspect of designing online is very key in being able to design and deliver effective online courses. Just remember your ISD standards.

Evaluation

Alas my contract has run out and its off to a new adventure. I wanted to share some interesting facts about evaluation and how it impacts most programs. Evaluation by definition is systematic determination of merit, worth, and significance of something or someone using criteria against a set of standards. Simple enough but is it worth implementing or even doing? Probably one of the most recognized programs, Donald Kirkpatrick’s Four Level Evaluation Model is of the highly regarded models still used today.  The following text summarized the concept of the evaluation process regarding training and performance.

The four-levels of evaluation consist of (Kirkpatrick, 1994):

• Reaction – how the learners react to the learning process
• Learning – the extent to which the learners gain knowledge and skills
• Behavior – capability to perform the learned skills while on the job
• Results – includes such items as monetary, efficiency, moral, etc.

This data will be quantified to each level of the program being evaluated and measures will be taken to address the needs of each level. But interestingly enough the majority of the organizations that use this model will not follow up with new directives to address the qualitative data that is collected. Instead most programs will be recycled and reused to generate the same stagnant data which will no doubt overlook the actual evaluation of the program. This the time that a true Training and Development leader or manager will recognize the need for true cost benefit change. Whether at the beginning or during or at the end evaluation is a valuable tool to use to measure the success of any program. Until next time.

Instructional Design?

Property of AEldata

I want to take some time to define what I feel Instructional Design is and how it relates any organization.  The definition that I have come to use for ID is the overall process that it takes to build curriculum and course material to create learning either through blended or online instruction. What I mean in process is the structure the organization has established as the working model to accomplish instructional design and the resources identified in which this will be accomplished with. Of course this assumes that one will understand the pieces to the process and how they function as a working model.

What is Instructional Design Theory ?

According to Reigeluth (1999: 6-7) a “grand old man” in this field, Instructional Design-Theory is:

1. design-oriented (focusing on means to attain given goals for learning or development) and
2. identifies methods of instruction (ways to support and facilitate learning) and the situation in which these methods should and should not be used.
3. Methods of instruction can be broken down into more detailed component methods
4. Methods are probabilistic, rather than deterministic…

This process in the development of course content and curriculum design becomes very apparent in the overall process of instructional design.  The process dictates the flow of the content as well as the chunking and sequencing. In instructional design this is very important because it will structure the course in a way that the student will make sense of the course objectives and will see the learning outcomes as they are developed.  The design process is akin to Blooms Taxonomy in that the lower levels of applications are building steps towards the big picture. You wouldn’t want a student to enroll in a Math program  and go straight to Calculus without having to learn algebra or geometry. Chunking and sequencing are kind of the same in theory. The course should be designed within a framework that introduces the subject at the beginning and gets into the meat of the course with building blocks. Kind of like holding their hand but without the contact. This article on Instructional Strategic Design has a good illustration of the process in action.

So before you begin that project make sure your ducks are all lined up before you get started. It is a set back once you get going and you have to back track to address a critical step after the development process has begun.