What if you have a whole set of learning modules, dozens of standard operating procedures (SOPs), or a family of learning paths to develop? And let’s say you want to be efficient about putting them together. Maybe it’s only you creating them. Or maybe you’re working with other people to get a big project done… Continue Reading
I described this process to a director who works in a Fortune 500 company the other day… You go to class (or take one online). You learn how to follow a procedure or process to make the world better in some way… Coaching Your Employees Managing Time Project Management Any Number of Other Things But!… Continue Reading
Interpersonal Skills are a combination of affective and cognitive skills. They are a content type that doesn’t always make the lists of content types. At a big meeting of training, organizational development, and various other flavors of performance improvement professionals at a large Fortune 500 company, we had a little incident. Barry (not his real… Continue Reading
One of the little chores that can take time and be really tedious is figuring out timing for a workshop or event. Now that I see such an easy way to do this, I cannot believe the amount of time I’ve spent trying to estimate timing, then adjusting for one thing, then maybe adding or… Continue Reading
What do you do if you’re pretty sure people are going to hate a class, but they have to take it anyway? Here’s an example… I had to teach people who were losing their jobs how to coach the new people who would take over their work. (Yikes!) A big company (which shall remain nameless)… Continue Reading
Part of a Series: Here’s Why I Love Content Types: And You Should, Too (Show How)—Practice, Practice, Practice—(Add Feedback) Psychomotor Skills. This is the physical stuff. Coordinated muscle movements. There are “fine” motor skills, like typing, suturing a wound, or filling a cavity and “gross” motor skills, like swinging a golf club, making gestures during… Continue Reading
Everyone says to design for your learners. And of course that’s essential. The Learners Are Ready, but Did We Think Enough About the Instructor? But sadly, the best-designed program in the world won’t work if the instructors-trainers-facilitators aren’t able to deliver it. Just because you could manage a complicated group activity, that doesn’t mean that the… Continue Reading
When I was at TRADOC (Army’s training HQ) recently, I had about a minute to explain that fixing the sexual harassment issue is (mostly) not a training problem. Prickly Pear Cactus, Coyote Creek Trail Meaning, you cannot fix a problem with sexual harassment and assault by making everybody take any amount of training. (This is true for… Continue Reading
Part of a Series: Here’s Why I Love Content Types: And You Should, Too Dusty Shows Her Attitude Attitudes. We can help our learners to form or change their approach toward something. We call this “affective learning.” We can usually infer that people have a particular attitude by certain choices that they make. For example, students show… Continue Reading
One of the first things a new designer might notice is that the technology we use to deliver instruction is always changing. Cases in point… When the overhead projector was invented, educators were so excited because they no longer had to dim the lights (and put their students to sleep). They could display visuals and… Continue Reading
