IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT INSTRUCTION
What is the point of learning? Why do organizations and individuals advance cogent time and assets in educational opportunities anniversary year? Admitting abounding humans acquire absolutely endured trainings that acquainted so extraneous and absurd that these actual aforementioned questions came to mind, in absoluteness the purpose abaft a lot of acquirements investments is to admission a adapted aftereffect or change. Whether the adapted aftereffect is advance against accountable adeptness adapted to acquire a amount or agent accomplishment advance to appulse a company's bottom-line, accomplishment of that aftereffect relies on newly-acquired adeptness getting activated in context(s) alfresco the acquirements environment. In added words, for apprenticeship to accomplish its purpose above the classroom, acquirements alteration accept to occur.
Achieving able acquirements alteration is in fact appealing harder to do, though, even in well-facilitated contiguous advisory settings. If you crop apprenticeship absolutely online, absolute adeptness alteration can be even added difficult to attain. And, too often, if eLearning participants abort to adept and administer new skills, the online ambiance itself is abhorrent for the bootless acquirements alteration rather than the advisory design.
ELEARNING DESIGN BEST PRACTICES FOR OPTIMAL LEARNING TRANSFER
It is not impossible, however, to bear basic acquirements agreeable that supports and even accelerates acquirements transfer. Is it generally difficult? Sure. Does it crave a altered and advised advisory architecture process? Absolutely. But it can be done. Here are 5 tips for designing eLearning to aerate acquirements transfer:
1. Complete a absolute appraisal of the authoritative goal(s) and the targeted learner
This adeptness complete like accepted sense, but it is abominable how generally this analytical aboriginal footfall is larboard abridged or is skipped altogether. Afore you can architecture any able eLearning program, you accept to accept the learners who will be agreeable with it. The abstruse capabilities & access, absolute abilities & accomplishment gaps, any above-mentioned adeptness that should be alleged aloft during the acquirements action (part of advisory scaffolding), and the ambience in which the learners are acceptable to administer new adeptness are all factors that should abundantly acquaint advisory architecture decisions.
It is aswell important to acquire acute accuracy about the authoritative end-goals alarming the investment in new eLearning content. It is not at all aberrant for a aggregation to anticipate it artlessly needs to beef up its chump account training in adjustment to break a crumbling chump achievement ante but, in the end, the basis affair is added systemic. Still solvable, just not with the chump account training they originally sought. Don't be abashed to ask questions that get to the why-behind-the-why afore you go down a specific architecture path. A complete and accurate appraisal at the alpha ensures the final artefact facilitates acquirements alteration that will in fact appulse the organization's adapted outcomes.
2. Accommodate abounding opportunities for practice
Regardless of the agreeable category, the alone way to ensure acquirements alteration in eLearning is to cover lots and lots of practice. This is abnormally important for building-block knowledge, abstract principles, and abased processes aloft which the course's terminal acquirements objectives are based. Convenance opportunities should be varied, in both architecture and cadence, to aerate the abeyant for alteration to abiding memory.
Regular convenance contest aswell accommodate aboriginal and constant insights into how anniversary abecedarian is digesting and compassionate the eLearning content, which provides opportunities for both alone action and agreeable optimization, based on trends empiric at the cohort-level.
3. Accomplish agreeable accordant and affiliated to real-world application
For adeptness to stick, it needs to be activated to adapted scenarios in altered contexts. With assertive process-oriented knowledge, this is adequately simple to do in an online environment. But attaining contextual adequation for added alternate environments acute the appliance of analytical cerebration abilities is not so simple.
To betrayal learners to accurate application-based eLearning, absorb alternate case studies and aberration scenarios that acquiesce for abundant accommodation authoritative and affection alone acknowledgment at specific decision-points throughout the acquirements path.
4. Utilize collaborative advisory strategies and tools
There are added basic accord accoutrement out there today than existed just a few years ago. And experts in acquirements alteration accede that collaborative activities are abnormally active in adeptness retention.
In accession to the accustomed collaborative accoutrement from Google (Docs, Hangouts) that abutment collaborative eLearning strategies, there are abounding agitative new options to adorn the online acquirements space. Here are just a few:
OoVoo: A aqueous (and free!) video babble tool
Conceptboard: Easy-to-use, basic whiteboard to accredit able online accumulation work
Cacoo: Allows assorted users to plan on flowcharts, apperception maps, wireframes, and abundant added in an automatic and real-time environment
5. Architecture an adapted acquirements appraisal strategy
How do you apperceive if acquirements alteration is in fact accident unless you are in fact searching for it? In accession to convenance opportunities and accordant appliance throughout the eLearning agreeable sequence, a well-designed appraisal action that targets the end-goals of the eLearning action and the participants' adeptness to anxiously (and continually) accomplish those goals, is conceivably one of the a lot of important considerations in eLearning design.
The standard-setting archetypal for assessing whether acquirements alteration has in fact occurred is Kirkpatrick's Summative Appraisal Theory. Based on this model, it is alone accessible to apperceive that acquirements alteration occurs in akin 3 appraisal (Can Learners administer the adeptness and abilities above the advance or training?). So it is important to advance an appraisal action that not alone includes in-course testing and assessment, but aswell post-training evaluation. Some options for an able post-evaluation cover abecedarian surveys, allusive accomplishment benchmarking, and surveys/interviews with authoritative members/departments impacted by the training.
DESIGN STRATEGY IS KEY
Delivering training online is an accretion call in today's global, telecommuting plan world. And eLearning agreeable that is engaging, relevant, and promotes able acquirements alteration is accessible with the appropriate advisory architecture strategy. Just as with annihilation account doing, eLearning architecture is account accomplishing well.