NYNP blog post 8-3-09

Notes from Day 1 of The eLearning Guild's New England Regional Instructional Design Symposium
Event info at http://www.elearningguild.com/content.cfm?selection=doc.1222

The eLearning Guild's Instructional Design Symposium on July 23 and 24 was excellent, and the highlights from my favorite sessions from Day 1 are below.

Mastering e-Learning Instructional Design in the 21st Century
With Brent Schlenker, The eLearning Guild

Schlenker gave a fantastic keynote address. One good quote was "clicking buttons in an elevator is not interactive, but we're told that clicking the 'next' button in an e-learning is." He pushed participants to do better with interactivity, and he suggested that at this point in technological advances, e-learning content should be searchable, editable, linkable, tagg-able, and feed-able. Another good quote was one he referenced by Plato: "You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than you can from a lifetime of conversation." He tied this to Ralph Koster's book A Theory of Fun for Game Design, which posits that with games, learning is the drug -- he suggested that e-learning should be designed to be just as effective at teaching as games.

He also referenced John Medina's book Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School and pushed participants to remember that brains need repetition, stimulation of the senses, and exploration of patterns in order to learn, so we need to build these into e-learning.

Beyond Kirkpatrick: Taking a Fresh Look at Analysis and Evaluation
Allison Rossett, San Diego State University

Rossett pushed participants to incorporate evidence into our e-learning practice -- both anecdotal evidence and metrics. She said that the data we collect in order to evaluate our e-learning should serve three broad purposes -- to plan, to report, and to improve.

Rossett quoted Abraham Lincoln -- "If I had eight hours to chop down a tree, I'd spend six hours sharpening my ax" -- to make the point that e-learning professionals should spend the majority of our time on analysis and evaluation. Her tips to make this feasible included baking in the metrics so that the e-learning is being evaluated throughout rather than just at the end, focusing only on gathering data that's actionable, and prioritizing the purposes of any project so that even with limited time and resources the project can be successful. To quote Rossett, "You can only judge success when you and those you serve have agreed on purposes."

Situation-based Learning Design: Research Insights for e-Learning
Will Thalheimer, Work-Learning Research

To increase long-term memory of what's learned in e-learning, Thalheimer said that e-learning content must be aligned with context, must include practice retrieving information from one's memory, and should be repeated over time. Situation-based learning design focuses on the first two. Content-context alignment can be achieved by matching the e-learning with the workplace in as many ways as possible, including background and incident, as well as look, feel, sounds, mood, space, etc. When designers cannot create a match, the next best strategy is to create many contexts, which also aids in memory retrieval. Regarding practice, research shows that even tests are helpful, especially if they include feedback.

When designing situation-based learning rather than topic-based learning, Thalheimer recommended considering the magic question -- "What do we want our learners to be able to do, and in what situations do we want our learners to do these things?" The answers to that question should guide designers in creating relevant e-learning. To do this, Thalheimer discussed the SEDA conceptualizati on of how people approach situations -- Situation, Evaluation, Decision, Action -- and noted that situation-based learning should include all of these phases.