E-learning for change
Changing learners’ perspectives can change their behaviors
Last week, respected e-learning provider Allen Interactions offered a free lunchtime webinar series featuring Ethan Edwards, their Chief Instructional Strategist and author of the free ebook Creating e-Learning that Makes a Difference. He was assisted by Carrie Zens.
Each of the four days covered one of the elements of their CCAF (Context, Challenge, Activity, Feedback) design model for creating e-learning that actively engages people’s minds in order to change their behavior in a meaningful way. Edwards pointed out that engaging people’s minds is different from simply testing whether they can regurgitate facts. He said that whereas many e-learning programs claim to be interactive because they include tests, genuine interactivity gets learners thinking and teaches them in such a way that they change their point of view.
I attended one of Edwards’ excellent Allen Interactions ASTD e-learning instructional design workshops years ago, so I know he’s an expert presenter and I was excited to attend the series. The key points from each day are below.
Context
An inviting and realistic context for e-learning helps people understand the point of what they they are learning and motivates them to engage with the e-learning. It sets the stage for success by creating a relevant experience that is obviously worth the learner’s time and attention.
Rules of thumb - good context should:
1) be immediately obvious as soon as the learner opens the e-learning
2) relate to the audience’s needs
3) create concrete experiences
4) suggest a real-world performance environment
5) be helpful as a reference point for what the participants are learning
6) be visually appealing
Challenge
Edwards pointed out that a good challenge needs to tie in with the learner’s motivation, which is usually not the same as the company’s or the e-learning designer’s motivations; this direct appeal to the learner’s motivation can counteract complacency on the part of learners by getting them to care about the e-learning. Possible learner motivations include interest, success, curiosity, reward, or just plain completing the task. On the other hand, learners are usually not motivated by tests, so unless a test is absolutely required, the learners’ performance can be evaluated by providing a challenge that requires the skills and knowledge taught by the e-learning.
Rules of thumb - a good challenge should:
1) be clear
2) increase in difficulty as the learner’s skills improve
3) relate to the learner’s motivation
4) offer a meaningful risk of failure
Activity
Edwards shared that the most common activity in e-learning is reading or listening, neither of which are particularly engaging activities. In addition, there is no real way to tell if these are even being done by the learner or not. With reading and listening, any learning that happens is basically a matter of chance. Reading and listening are commonly followed by an assessment, which only shows whether a learner can recall the right answer.
A good activity, however, helps the learners recognize the right answer by applying what they’ve learned. It simulates key real-world activities, which makes it much more likely that genuine learning will actually occur.
Rules of thumb - a good activity should:
1) create physical involvement
2) build commitment to learning
3) encourage investment
4) transfer ownership of the learning from the e-learning designer to the learner
5) involve all of the senses because the story behind the activity is is so fully fleshed out
Feedback
Feedback is a motivating opportunity to teach learners, as they will naturally be interested in learning about why their decisions during an activity were correct or incorrect. When e-learning is designed well, the context peaks the learners’ interest, the challenge and activity let them apply it, and the specific feedback deepens their understanding and lets them monitor their own learning. When e-learning is designed poorly, it dumps all of the information on the learners at once, asks them to regurgitate it during a test, and then punishes them if they don’t remember everything, without telling them what was wrong or why.
Rules of thumb - good feedback should:
1) clearly communicate correctness
2) preserve the learner’s response for reference
3) deliver new content, as learners will be much more interested in content at the point of feedback
4) demonstrate the consequences of non-performance
5) continually reinforce the context
6) delay judgement, to allow the learners time to figure something out for themselves
7) be compelling to the learner
8) require correct performance
Changing learners’ perspectives can change their behaviors
Last week, respected e-learning provider Allen Interactions offered a free lunchtime webinar series featuring Ethan Edwards, their Chief Instructional Strategist and author of the free ebook Creating e-Learning that Makes a Difference. He was assisted by Carrie Zens.
Each of the four days covered one of the elements of their CCAF (Context, Challenge, Activity, Feedback) design model for creating e-learning that actively engages people’s minds in order to change their behavior in a meaningful way. Edwards pointed out that engaging people’s minds is different from simply testing whether they can regurgitate facts. He said that whereas many e-learning programs claim to be interactive because they include tests, genuine interactivity gets learners thinking and teaches them in such a way that they change their point of view.
I attended one of Edwards’ excellent Allen Interactions ASTD e-learning instructional design workshops years ago, so I know he’s an expert presenter and I was excited to attend the series. The key points from each day are below.
Context
An inviting and realistic context for e-learning helps people understand the point of what they they are learning and motivates them to engage with the e-learning. It sets the stage for success by creating a relevant experience that is obviously worth the learner’s time and attention.
Rules of thumb - good context should:
1) be immediately obvious as soon as the learner opens the e-learning
2) relate to the audience’s needs
3) create concrete experiences
4) suggest a real-world performance environment
5) be helpful as a reference point for what the participants are learning
6) be visually appealing
Challenge
Edwards pointed out that a good challenge needs to tie in with the learner’s motivation, which is usually not the same as the company’s or the e-learning designer’s motivations; this direct appeal to the learner’s motivation can counteract complacency on the part of learners by getting them to care about the e-learning. Possible learner motivations include interest, success, curiosity, reward, or just plain completing the task. On the other hand, learners are usually not motivated by tests, so unless a test is absolutely required, the learners’ performance can be evaluated by providing a challenge that requires the skills and knowledge taught by the e-learning.
Rules of thumb - a good challenge should:
1) be clear
2) increase in difficulty as the learner’s skills improve
3) relate to the learner’s motivation
4) offer a meaningful risk of failure
Activity
Edwards shared that the most common activity in e-learning is reading or listening, neither of which are particularly engaging activities. In addition, there is no real way to tell if these are even being done by the learner or not. With reading and listening, any learning that happens is basically a matter of chance. Reading and listening are commonly followed by an assessment, which only shows whether a learner can recall the right answer.
A good activity, however, helps the learners recognize the right answer by applying what they’ve learned. It simulates key real-world activities, which makes it much more likely that genuine learning will actually occur.
Rules of thumb - a good activity should:
1) create physical involvement
2) build commitment to learning
3) encourage investment
4) transfer ownership of the learning from the e-learning designer to the learner
5) involve all of the senses because the story behind the activity is is so fully fleshed out
Feedback
Feedback is a motivating opportunity to teach learners, as they will naturally be interested in learning about why their decisions during an activity were correct or incorrect. When e-learning is designed well, the context peaks the learners’ interest, the challenge and activity let them apply it, and the specific feedback deepens their understanding and lets them monitor their own learning. When e-learning is designed poorly, it dumps all of the information on the learners at once, asks them to regurgitate it during a test, and then punishes them if they don’t remember everything, without telling them what was wrong or why.
Rules of thumb - good feedback should:
1) clearly communicate correctness
2) preserve the learner’s response for reference
3) deliver new content, as learners will be much more interested in content at the point of feedback
4) demonstrate the consequences of non-performance
5) continually reinforce the context
6) delay judgement, to allow the learners time to figure something out for themselves
7) be compelling to the learner
8) require correct performance
