Instructional Design 101

So, you’ve been assigned the task of turning your organization’s existing stand-and-deliver training material into e-Learning gold. Great! Now what do you do?

To create effective online learning programs, you must combine interesting content with engaging graphics and relevant interactive opportunities to create experiences that prompt users to want to learn. Sounds simple, right? Well, let’s just say it’s easier if you know what you’re doing. If you’re new to the world of e-Learning development, follow these instructional design tips to build a learning program that informs, entertains and, most important, teaches.

Identify the Need

The first step to take when creating an e-Learning project is to identify the need for the program. Ask yourself (or your boss who assigned you to the task) why the program is being created. Does the current instructor-led session lack user participation opportunities? Is it too difficult to get employees from around the world in one place to take the training? Are there new skill or knowledge requirements that require new training? Answers to questions like these will enable you to determine curricular requirements and topics to cover in the course, as well as any constraints, resources, and limitations you’ll need to consider.

Determine Instructional Goals

Once you know why you’re creating the course, you can then concentrate on developing appropriate instructional goals you want learners to achieve. To do so effectively, consider user knowledge and skill level. Remember, learning objectives should be the backbone of your program. Identify what you need users to accomplish before you do just about anything else. With the learning objectives identified, you are ready to outline the content and break the information into appropriate chunks for sequencing and pace, which will help your course flow nicely without making the user feel rushed. And when developing goals, remember to answer the question every user will want to know: What’s in it for me?

Create Content

When creating content for your course, always keep your learning objectives in mind. By considering the objectives and content outline as your development road map, you’ll be able to create an effective training course that avoids straying from key learning material. If you plan to assess learner performance, it’s important to develop appropriate test questions before you begin content creation. If you’re unable to finalize the assessments this early in the process, you should create the questions while you’re developing the course content to ensure alignment with the objectives.

Select Media Components

Selecting the right media components for your course can mean the difference between a positive learning experience for users and one that leaves them bored and frustrated. You can make your content come alive with eye-catching graphics, audio, video, animations and simulations. By combining any or all of these elements with onscreen text, you can effectively teach to multiple learning styles (for more information about accommodating diverse learning styles, read about the NexLearn Learning Style Continuum at www.nexlearn.com). When choosing media elements, you should also consider delivery methods (Web/CD/etc.). Courses with an abundance of graphic images, animations and movies create larger files that typically require more bandwidth to deliver across Internet/intranet connections.

Evaluation is also an important step. To ensure the course content and design is appropriate for your target audience, conduct rounds of internal testing and, if you have time, gather feedback from members of a focus group.

When developing your next learning project, keep in mind that the more engaging you make your course, the more willing users will be to participate in their learning experience. Remember, engaging content and active learners leads to higher retention rates.