In our Personal Experience Insights series, members of the Everspring Learning Design department share first-hand accounts of creating online learning content and meaningful takeaways from their professional experiences.
Amalia Schwee is an Associate Director of Instructional Design and the Quality Assurance Principal in the Learning Design department at Everspring. She has a PhD in Learning Sciences from Northwestern University and lives in Chicago, Illinois.
When developing a learning experience, the path to achieving your vision may feel murky. While you may have a clear sense of what you want the experience to ultimately look like, for example, the optimal distribution of materials and assessments may be uncertain. Similarly, the topics to be covered might be set, but questions may remain about how much material to present for each subtopic and how best to present it.
I recently contended with such uncertainty while developing a new training focused on conducting course quality reviews. In the training materials, I needed to establish what we consider to be a high-quality learning experience and why. I also needed to teach learners how to complete all applicable review procedures step by step. It was essential for learners to be able to apply the material directly to their day-to-day work, and we wanted them to be able to do so with a robust understanding of not only how to complete the required procedures but also why each procedural step was deemed essential.
Another key consideration was we needed the training materials to be as easy to search and update as possible. Ideally, learners would be able to refer back to the content, and we wanted them to be able to consistently locate the information they needed with minimal effort. Facilitators would also need to be able to integrate new procedures swiftly and adjust existing material to ensure the content remained fully up-to-date and maximally relevant for learners.
With all of these considerations in mind, I set to work drafting text-based material for the training. I wrote, I rewrote, and then I wrote some more. What’s another two paragraphs (or twenty)? When all was said and done, I’d written a short novel that, while informative and strategically organized, was not destined to be a best seller.
Given the volume of content, I needed to consider how I might better balance the needs of the training with learner needs and preferences. There was no escaping the need to present large quantities of detailed information to learners, but it certainly didn’t need to be presented all in one lengthy block of text. While the journey through the training would inevitably be long, I found that thinking about the training as a journey helped me identify numerous opportunities to make it a more pleasant and engaging learning experience. For any journey, essential needs include directions, appropriate equipment, and opportunities to pause, reflect, and rest.
Thinking about directions, I sought to infuse the training with more direct insights into my own thought processes and rationale for developing the learning materials. For example, I added more detailed descriptions of how the training modules build upon each other and more frequent notes to reassure learners that information was being presented in a strategic order. I also aimed to be mindful of the fact that different learners might benefit from having more individualized directions for approaching different aspects of the training. Learners with minimal background knowledge on a topic, for example, would benefit from engaging with certain supplemental resources more deeply. Incorporating such directives where applicable would help learners use their time more effectively.
In terms of equipment, I aimed to ensure that all resources and tools learners might need were as easy to review and use as possible. Given how much content was presented in the training itself, it was especially important to make sure that learners would be able to engage with external materials readily and as intended. If a lengthy resource was made available simply for reference or because learners would benefit from having it bookmarked for future use, for example, I made this explicit. Relatedly, I sought to convey the practical significance of the resources and tools for the day-to-day work learners would be doing after completing the training.
Finally, for opportunities to pause, reflect, and rest, I aimed to intersperse the content with brief questions and prompts for learners to address. The questions included were designed to promote a deeper understanding of the core frameworks, concepts, and skills, while the prompts were intended to encourage learners to consider similarities and differences in procedures and how different pieces of content built upon each other. Throughout the training, I also sought to chunk content strategically, making it easier for learners to identify optimal times to take a break.
If you are developing an online course or training, consider examining your material through a journey lens. Doing so can not only help you navigate your way through the development process more easily but also can help you identify and capitalize on more opportunities to enhance the quality of the learning experience.