Importance of relevance when designing a learning program
The first entry for 2018! Hope this year brings greater success and accomplishments.
In the first entry for this year i would like to talk about the importance of relevance of subject material when developing a learning program.
One of my pet peeves when designing and developing a learning program is where the program manager comes in and says "looks good but I think we need to make it more robust". Now to be clear, I have nothing against making learning more robust per se and on some occasions I have realised that what I had developed needed to be made more robust. However, I have trouble with those occasions when the program manager or the SME (but mostly program manager) wants to pad things up so that they can justify the costs involved in developing the program.
Relevant content is so important in ensuring that the learning is effective, despite this when it comes time to develop training programs certain stakeholders insist on putting irrelevant stuff in so that the program looks like it has "meat on the bones". This reduces the principle of relevancy to nothing more than a buzzword. This has implications for the learning in the sense that the learners can't identify with the course/learning, find it boring and get switched off.
To avoid this situation course developers (IDs, SMEs, Program Managers) should involve learners and potential learners and make them a stakeholder in the course before any training delivery has taken place. This can be done by asking the learners their previous learning experiences, what worked and what didn't, what they would like to see more of. Chances are the expectations of learners and course developers might be poles apart. Feedback from learners should be compared against management expectations to see where any gaps are and devise ways to fill those gaps. Also, involving the learners form the beginning sends them a signal that their input is valued and they get mentally prepared for the course.
It is important that feedback from learners should be gained in a continuous manner and recorded. Most of the times organisations give learners a static feedback form at the conclusion of the learning session, which is then used to inform and guide future learning development. However, what a learner believes or feels immediately after conclusion of a learning event might be different from how they feel about it during the learning event or a couple of days later or a week later. Feedback taken immediately after as well as a week later or during the learning can throw up distinct results and outline certain things that can't be identified if feedback is taken only at the conclusion of the learning event.
I have recently been witness to a course where a particular concept was unnecessarily portrayed as very important despite it not making much sense to any of the participants. The end result being learner disenchantment and learners leaving after making excuses or flat out saying that they find the course demands to be unreasonable. All because of a not so important and irrelevant concept that was shown as being very important.
Maybe it was important but the learners could not understand the importance. If feedback had been taken midcourse, then perhaps some changes could have been made to the course that would have ensured the learning stayed relevant and made the learners more agreeable to the course and this concept in particular.
In the first entry for this year i would like to talk about the importance of relevance of subject material when developing a learning program.
One of my pet peeves when designing and developing a learning program is where the program manager comes in and says "looks good but I think we need to make it more robust". Now to be clear, I have nothing against making learning more robust per se and on some occasions I have realised that what I had developed needed to be made more robust. However, I have trouble with those occasions when the program manager or the SME (but mostly program manager) wants to pad things up so that they can justify the costs involved in developing the program.
Relevant content is so important in ensuring that the learning is effective, despite this when it comes time to develop training programs certain stakeholders insist on putting irrelevant stuff in so that the program looks like it has "meat on the bones". This reduces the principle of relevancy to nothing more than a buzzword. This has implications for the learning in the sense that the learners can't identify with the course/learning, find it boring and get switched off.
To avoid this situation course developers (IDs, SMEs, Program Managers) should involve learners and potential learners and make them a stakeholder in the course before any training delivery has taken place. This can be done by asking the learners their previous learning experiences, what worked and what didn't, what they would like to see more of. Chances are the expectations of learners and course developers might be poles apart. Feedback from learners should be compared against management expectations to see where any gaps are and devise ways to fill those gaps. Also, involving the learners form the beginning sends them a signal that their input is valued and they get mentally prepared for the course.
It is important that feedback from learners should be gained in a continuous manner and recorded. Most of the times organisations give learners a static feedback form at the conclusion of the learning session, which is then used to inform and guide future learning development. However, what a learner believes or feels immediately after conclusion of a learning event might be different from how they feel about it during the learning event or a couple of days later or a week later. Feedback taken immediately after as well as a week later or during the learning can throw up distinct results and outline certain things that can't be identified if feedback is taken only at the conclusion of the learning event.
I have recently been witness to a course where a particular concept was unnecessarily portrayed as very important despite it not making much sense to any of the participants. The end result being learner disenchantment and learners leaving after making excuses or flat out saying that they find the course demands to be unreasonable. All because of a not so important and irrelevant concept that was shown as being very important.
Maybe it was important but the learners could not understand the importance. If feedback had been taken midcourse, then perhaps some changes could have been made to the course that would have ensured the learning stayed relevant and made the learners more agreeable to the course and this concept in particular.
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