Get a daily instructional design idea

30 August 2010 By 5 Comments

I’ve been tweeting a daily idea to spark your instructional design creativity. To get your daily ID idea, follow me on Twitter. (I don’t say much!)

Some recent tweets in the series:

  • Ask your SME, “What are the 3 most common mistakes people make?” Turn them into branching scenarios.
  • Using a story? What challenge is your character facing? Make them suffer!
  • Are you solving a performance problem, or are you just turning information into a course?
  • What are you creating to support your course? Job aids? Guidance for managers? Follow-up discussion? Additional tips in emails?
  • Teaching a complex procedure? Course: How to use the job aids. Job aids: Everything else.
  • What compelling scenario can you use to start your course? P.S. “A new employee is wondering…” isn’t compelling.
  • Have your learners finish an almost-completed problem, then take away support in stages until they’re flying solo.
  • What do you really want? “Describe the Heimlich maneuver” or “Save lives?” Don’t stop at declarative knowledge.
  • How can you turn a dos/don’ts list into something more memorable? Try short scenarios that show the results; have learners draw the conclusion.

I use the #IDideas hashtag, and other people sometimes chime in with their own ideas. You can see past ideas here.

Image © iStockPhoto: mattjeacock

Filed Under: Instructional design, Scenario design, Writing tips

Why you need to set limits

25 August 2010 By 7 Comments

What happens if you don’t set any boundaries in your relationships? You wear yourself out doing everything for everybody and the next thing you know, you’ve cursed everyone out, grabbed a couple of beers, and slid down the escape chute.

The same thing can happen to your course. If you don’t set any boundaries and try to cover everything for everybody, you end up with a stressed-out course that can’t do anything for anybody.

Just say no

It’s fun to say “no.” Try it!

  • “I’m sorry, but we can’t teach novices and experts simultaneously. We need to pick one or the other.”
     
  • “Let’s focus on people who need to do X in situation Y. If we try to reach ‘everyone who’s interested in X,’ we’ll just create an information dump.”
     
  • “Since widget sniffers and widget snarfers have very different jobs, we should create a separate module for each role.”

No one wants a lukewarm experience

An entrepreneur was convinced he had a great idea. “Some people like hot tea, and other people like cold tea,” he said. “Let’s sell lukewarm tea and dominate both markets!”

Is your course lukewarm?

Image © iStockPhoto: BijoyVerghese

Filed Under: Instructional design Tagged With: