What approach should be used by instructional designers to have an elearning course?
Instructional designers are the core source behind any elearning course. They need the most modern technologies to create such courses.
The main quality of an instructional designer is that he should have a zest for learning.
They also have good communication skills to be able to build a story and bind a learner. Learners are the main focus of what to do, and hence the following instructional design skills are important to create the content for a learner:
- Thinking according to learners
The instructional designer needs to think like a learner. He has to keep the needs of the learner, problems in mind rather than thinking about the course’s content. Instructional designers must apply thinking as per learners so that the latter can have better performance and can get rid of problems at their workplace. The instructional designer needs to have empathy for the learner of the course. That’s how an instructional designer can create a course that will resolve work-related issues for the learner.
Learner based thinking places importance on the requirements of learners and expects the instructional designer to do complete research. Once the problem is completely researched, feedback from learners is taken after developing a sample. It’s important that the mistakes are rectified and the design process is changed so that learners have a better experience with the course.
- Stress on the results of the course
The main goal in an elearning course is to focus on what the learner wants. There needs to be a strategic decision for the same purpose. Performance mapping is a strategy which the designer can use to make sure that there is a targeted outcome of the elearning experience.
So, the gist is that the course must have a strategy that the learners need to do something after watching the course, rather than just disbursing information to them via it. This kind of the desired outcome from the course requires that the instructional designer must use different methodologies to alter the behavior of the learners after they have been through the elearning course.
Hence, the main objective of a course is to teach the learners what they need to be taught exactly to attain the objectives of an organization. The learners are shown real-life scenarios in the course so that they can take decisions by using knowledge which they can use in real life and well.
An instructional designer needs to know that the client will only invest in the development of an elearning course once it results in a change in the performance of employees.
- A balanced approach
An instructional designer needs to use a balanced approach. This implies he should be able to evaluate what the learner wants and he should know the course content. This way, he can only help the learner in becoming thorough with the performance objectives i.e. what his performance needs to achieve. An instructional designer employs techniques such as assessments to let the learner know where is he lacking and domains in which more training is needed. The designers conduct both formative and summative assessments to check the learning level. The summative assessments are done when the course is finished while the formative assessments are done when the course is continuing. The latter consist of assessments where students are supposed to write what they learnt while the former consist of exams.
By following these tips, instructional designers can make sure that you can get a result-oriented elearning course.