What Everybody Ought To Know About Instructional Design

Article: What Everybody Ought to Know About Instructional Design

It answers the question “What is the role of the instructional designer? And how do I convey that to my clients and subject matter experts?"

The article is worth the read, but I’ll summarize:

• The instructional designer is to help learners make sense of the new information they get [from e-learning courses].
• ID’s help the learner focus on very specific pieces of information by providing context and perspective.
• ID’s help compress the learning process saving time and money.
• ID’s present a clear and meaningful purpose for the learners.

When Less Is More

Quite often in the compliance courses, much of the content deals with the history of the different compliance laws, why they were put in place and every other back story. Just how much of that content is necessary when developing a course?

A great article today titled "Build Better e-Learning Courses By Getting Rid of Some of the Content" lists three critical questions to determine which content is 'need to know' versus 'nice to know'.

1. What is the learner supposed to do at the end of the course? Should they accomplish a specific task or solve a certain problem?
2. What course content will help the learner meet the course objectives? Sort the content and identify which pieces the learner needs to meet the course goals.
3. How will the learner use this in the real world? If knowing the chairman of the Department of Justice won't help the learner identify when HIPAA laws are being violated, then don't include it in the course.

The 'need to know' information doesn't need to be ellimated entirely; it just needs to augment the course content instead being the course content. If the learner seeks it out or finds it necessary, it can be available as resource information or links to additonal documentation.

Measurement Job Aid

As a follow up to my last post, I found a handy 1 page job aid that helps in determining if the measurement tool in an eLearning course is as good as it can be.

Downoad PDF