Advancements in Instructional Design

Highway Signpost with New Technology wording on Sky Background.

As we progress through the 21^st century I continually marvel at the technological advances that have been introduced and continue to emerge at a rapid rate.  Just in the past few years we have seen cars that can park themselves, a fridge that can tell you when you need to buy milk, a phone that can lock your door when you are a thousand kilometres away, robots that can clean your floors and drones filling our skies that are quite literately flying where no man has flown before and doing everything from delivering a package to mapping out the best areas to grow crops.   While many of these examples have made our lives easier they have also conditioned us to expect the same type of progress in all aspects of our lives, including how we learn.

It wasn’t that long ago that training meant going to classroom, reading from a thick manual and listening to a facilitator tell you what you needed to know.  Now while there remain situations where having a facilitator assist you in learning is beneficial, the fact remains today’s student expects more, and more is what they have been getting.  Through virtual learning today’s student can attend a course being taught by person on the other side of the country while still participating in live exercises, collaborating with their fellow students and receiving immediate feedback on tests and quizzes.   With mobile learning (or Mlearning) a student can not only access course material that has been specifically formatted for their hand held device or smartphone, but are also able to view and complete interactive exercises, the same as they would on a laptop or desktop computer.

Looking at the content being developed the advancements have been just as impressive. With Elearning, course materials and manuals come to life by integrating elements and interactions that keep the learner engaged. This can include 3D graphic and Whiteboard animation, technologies that not that long ago were only seen on your local movie screen. If that were not enough to excite and engage, learners can also complete exercises and reviews through gaming which is quickly becoming a popular option, especially with the younger audiences.

With the continued advances in training and course design there has emerged a parallel need to house the materials in a central location that is easily accessible for the learner. As such many organisations over these past few years have moved to using a Learning Management System, or LMS. These learning portals can provide the user many great options including easy access to course materials through a simple menu design and search features, links to social media, chat options, forums for discussions and quick availability to a student’s learning profile.

Considering all of the above I think it fair to say these are indeed exciting times in training and development and am equally certain that the best is yet to come!

To learn more about training solutions offered by Pathways please visit our website at http://www.Pathwaysinc.ca

Creating multiple choice questions for eLearning can be as easy as 1, 2, 3…

Multiple choice questions are a fairly common evaluation tool for learning. Because the learner often has to choose between three to five options, this method of questioning can encourage thought around being detailed oriented about facts and processes. When executed well, it is a very effective means of gauging learner knowledge of content. Here are some guidelines for creating multiple choice questions for eLearning modules.

1. Ensure that only one option is the correct answer. Although it is a common practice to have some responses appear very similar, make certain that there are some differentiators between similar answers and the correct answer.

2. Try to stick to 3-5 options. Providing too many answer options can be tedious on the learner and can detract from the actual question. As well, having to provide many answer options can result in the addition of non-sensical and/or non-related responses.

3. Aim to make questions and responses as clear and concise as possible. Creating questions that are too verbose can confuse the learner and can take away from the objective of the learning.

4. Keep all answer options to a similar length. Keeping responses to a similar length is a good technique to ensure that learners do not single out particular responses because they have more or less words.

5. Avoid sentences with double negative phrases. Ambiguous language may deter the learner from obtaining the correct answer even if they know and understand the information.

Good Politics and Customer Service

In my previous post I commented at length about the harsh realities of today’s organizational politics and the childish interactions that result… but I did say there was hope… or at least I hinted at as much.

Hope comes in the form of internal customer service and the good will it generates – that good will begets good politics.

Much is made – and rightfully so – about the need to effectively service our external clients. But what about our ‘internal’ customers, should they be held to less of a service standard than their (typically) paying counterparts?

When I’m asked to speak on this subject, invariably this question arises: “Should our commitment to internal service, match our commitment to external customer care?”

 The answer: OF COURSE!

Would you talk to your Mother like that?

Customer service requires constant attention to the end-user client. Constant action. Sometimes clients are demanding, too demanding. Sometimes they want too much, need too much, ask too many questions, are slow on the uptake, need help with everything, interrupt your ‘real work’ etc. etc.

But still, even with all of the effort that is required to keep them happy, everyone reading this knows, you never:

• Swear at a customer, or speak disparagingly
• Sigh after they make a request, or ask a question – no matter how annoying it may be
• Forget basic manners, such as: please and thank you
• Attend a planned meeting late, or forget about it altogether

These things are simply ‘no-no’s” in the world of customer service… Correct?

What if that customer is a colleague from Sales, Marketing, Operations, HR or Finance? Do these simple ‘rules’ still apply? If they do, you are well on your way to creating a team that has the internal support to effectively interact with an increasingly complex external customer… if those rules do not apply to your colleagues – why not?

It’s just math.

As far as I’m concerned, without a positive (internal) focus on any group that is tasked with delivering (external) customer excellence, the result will always be a ‘mixed bag’ of client service interactions. Any organization, department or team that fails to care for its internal customer, is counting exclusively on the intrinsic motivation of the individual contributor to drive results.

As a business owner… that is simply terrifying. The math I mean.

• Happy staff = Happy clients.
• Unhappy staff = Customer service pinned to a wish and a prayer.

There are no guarantees in life, but I’ll take my chances with a high functioning, engaged and recognized staff member interacting with my clients, over a disengaged and disgruntled employee that I hope will put the customer’s needs above their own.

It’s just good politics.

This is where the real ‘bloggin’ begins…

I waited for 20 years before finally deciding write about leadership – leadership in the real world that is – not the fictional world too often written about in management textbooks and spoken about over PowerPoint presentations.

I suppose I needed to muster the courage to openly expel my opinions on a soapbox larger than my typical training workshop room, or conference centre hall – and with slightly more character space than my typical Tweets.

So here I am, writing about management and leadership after spending countless hours, days and years living under its rule and espousing its virtues as a manager of people and facilitator of courseware.

Leadership after all, requires conviction in ones values and beliefs, along with the strength of character to live up to them. Most importantly though, leadership (at least in the real world) requires presence; the sort of presence that inspires loyalty, commitment and action, the sort of presence that cannot be taught – but can be learned.

The blogs that I will post moving forward are the manifestation of my feelings, opinions, observations and anecdotal insights into the real world of management; the one that keeps people up at night angry, or if they are lucky, puts them to bed with a smile on their face.

See you soon!