When I was teaching a graduate course in instructional design at USC, I mentioned that it doesn’t make sense to consider “learning styles” when designing or delivering instruction. Some of my students looked at me like I was nuts. How do you teach an “auditory learner” to recognize Ginkgo leaves? A colleague recently made an… Continue Reading
Sometimes it makes sense to ponder something that’s new or different. Question: What kind of tree has leaves like this? We learn all the time. But the whole process of learning is complex because individuals, environments, organizations, content, goals, and a host of other things vary. Experts can help people to learn. But they do… Continue Reading
In my early days as an instructional designer I had any number of “learning experiences.” Each of the following little stories actually happened. I’m telling them now because they could happen to anybody… and you might find the remedies useful. Or at least it might be helpful to ponder what you would do in similar… Continue Reading
Carving out time for learning in the workplace can be difficult. Without a Clear Picture, It’s Difficult to See What to Do There’s this cascading desire to reduce the time spent learning something. In the corporate world, for example: If a course is a week long, someone will ask, can we do it in 3… Continue Reading
Want to remember something? Want to give your learners a fun way to study on their own to enhance their memories? Maybe add a little gamification to an otherwise boring pursuit? Want to Remember? Try Repetition with Variety Memorization usually takes time. When it’s required, one way to encourage studying for memory is to use… Continue Reading
If we want to design a program that helps people to learn, we talk about many things, including… Providing the right kind of practice I recently reviewed an elearning program, and I was struck by how difficult it can be to provide the appropriate practice. An Easy Example For concepts, it’s generally not enough to… Continue Reading
Want to make learning easier? This ice breaker is fun, but more importantly, it also helps participants to “wake up what they already know” about a topic. Is “waking stuff up” important? Yes! Here’s why: We learn by adding to what we already know. When we get people to think about what they know already—even… Continue Reading
Someone posed this question the other day: What are the design implications when you change the technology? So, let’s assume that we’ve been teaching something face-to-face, but now we want to mediate the training. Put it online, for example. (This was the real question.) Try Chunking Content into Many Smaller Sections Here are some key… Continue Reading
Sooner or later, organizations responsible for providing learning & development opportunities have to decide whether to measure how they’re doing. It’s a great idea to use measures to… Improve what we offer (to do a better job) Prove that what we offer is worthwhile (show why we should keep our jobs) What shall I count… Continue Reading
One of my university profs had a knack for explaining complicated chemistry concepts and processes. As he spoke, he watched the students’ expressions. If they looked confused, he would explain again another way—until people clearly “got it.” His goal was not to get through his lectures; it was to make sure that we understood what… Continue Reading
