lifeandlearning

Ensuring relevance of learning is without a doubt the single most important thing when designing/developing a course. Learners will simply not be able to gain anything from a course if it does not cater to what the learner wants to achieve. Relevancy in a course can be achieved by accurately determining course requirements (what is covered in the course and how the course will be done) and stakeholder expectations (how a learner wants to learn, how do they like to get feedback, course duration, medium, depth etc.) and then meeting them to the maximum extent possible. However due to a combination of situations, constraints and stakeholder demands this is easier said than done. The technique that I have used to make learning relevant is to gather as much information as possible from as many stakeholders (managers, learners, SME, customers etc.) as possible. Now given the short production times I am not always able to get as much info as I would like to have but I always try to ge

The final stage of the ADDIE model is the Evaluation stage. This is the stage in which we try to evaluate whether our course has met its objectives and to find out if anything else needs to be done to improve the effectiveness of the course. This evaluation is primarily concerned around the following areas: 1         Determining what the learners liked or did not like about the course. This evaluation starts when the course itself starts and keeps on going even after the course has ended. The main input/feedback for this evaluation comes from learners. For example – if the majority of learners have identified the same problem areas or if there is learning content that the learners have not liked due to a number of reasons, then this input/feedback is recorded to rethink 2        Did the course meet its objectives i.e. did the course actually result in an improvement of the learner’s skills and knowledge, did the course lead to greater productivity, increased customer satisfact

The fourth stage of the ADDIE model is called the implementation stage. This stage starts when development of learning content has finished and now we are actively taking steps to ensure that the training event goes smoothly for both the learners and the trainers. This is a very important stage as any mistake here can severely impact on course quality and nullify all the hard work done during the previous stages. There are three main areas in the implementation stage. One where the trainers need to be prepared for the course and one where the learners need to be prepared for the course and one where the actual course and the learning environment need to be checked and tuned. Preparing the trainer – Although sometimes the course developer also acts as the trainer, in majority of cases the course developer would need to hand off the course to another person who will actually provide the training. This trainer would need to be provided with an overview of the course, the perform

Moving along on this series of blog posts on the ADDIE model of instructional design we will talk about the Development stage today. The development stage of ADDIE is the fun stage where you actually build what you have designed. The main challenge in this stage is to estimate how long would it take to develop the various pieces of the course pie, including arranging for specialist support where necessary. Examples of specialist support could be voice over artist for eLearning, video editing for training videos and arranging subject experts for podcasts. This development could include but is not limited to the development of pieces such as: ·       eLearning - Through PowerPoint or specialist eLearning development software such as Articulate Storyline, Adobe Captivate, Lectora, RISE etc. ·       Using the LMS native abilities to develop learning ·       Training videos and interactive videos ·       Learning chat bots – useful for interactive branching scenarios ·   

The Design stage of ADDIE follows the Analysis stage. In this stage we develop a prototype for the course that we are going to deliver based on the insights we generated during the Analysis stage. More specifically, this stage includes development of: An instructional strategy – This is the core of the Design stage and informs what the learner needs to learn. An instructional strategy outlines what teaching and learning activities will be used and how they will be used, keeping the learner cohort in mind. The instructional strategy needs to ensure that learners are engaged and supported in the learning process and that the learner needs are taken into consideration. For example – Let’s say we are developing an instructional strategy to teach people from a non-English background on how to cook a dish. In this case we need to be mindful of the general English level of the cohort so our instructions should not be overly detailed. Secondly it needs to be realistic and relevant so

I was having a chat with a work colleague the other day. The common work methodology at this work place revolves around the ADDIE method. While talking to her, I had a feeling that my colleague did not really understand this process very well. I say very well because although she knew what ADDIE stood for and had a broad idea of what needs to be done in each stage, she did not have a good understanding of the constituent elements of each stage or how to apply them. This got me thinking that perhaps there are many such instructional designers out there who might have been using this process on paper but do not understand it at a deeper level. This in turn gave me the fodder for my current entry. The ADDIE process is perhaps the most well-known and oldest of instructional design methods. ADDIE stands for A nalyse, D esign, D evelop, I mplement and E valuate. It is fairly intuitive and logical in nature. Also, it needs to be kept in mind that the ADDIE method whi

There have been many instances in my life where I learned something only to forget it sometime later. Two things that come to mind are Calculus and operating the back end of Moodle (an LMS very popular in Australia, India and the UK). I do not think much about Calculus as I am sure I would not have made it anywhere as a mathematician anyway but forgetting how to operate certain things in Moodle is something that haunts me every single day. The reason why I forgot how to operate Moodle is because I did not use it for a couple of years. During these years I entered what is called as a ‘forgetting curve’. This was a term first used by Hermann Ebbinghaus in the late 1880s. This essentially means that any information in our memory not used for a certain period starts to decay. The rate of decay may be different for different pieces and types of information, but it does affect every piece of information. So, what is the relevance of this forgetting cu