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There is one experience that sticks with me when I'm designing courses.
I created a course years ago. My slides were looked great, the theme fit perfectly and everything followed the structure I had been taught when I first joined the company. However, when the first session of my session ended, a newly hired employee asked, "Wait, what do I actually have to do when I experience this in my shift."
That's when it hit me. I had worked so hard creating what seemed to be a perfect course, but in fact I did not make it make send. Not in the way that really sticks with a learner. Not in a way that it clicks in a person's brain from "I get it" to "I can do it."
And now I create each course with one goal in mind. Get the learner grasp information in a way that feels authentic, something that can apply, and not too much to grasp. Especially adult learners in high pressured fields such as healthcare. They don't have time to sift through material that is not connecting with their everyday workflow. They need simplicity, relevance, and the kind of support that needs to feel like someone actually understands what they deal with day in and day out.
I'm not implying aesthetics and organization don't matter, they absolutely do. However, all that polish cannot make up for cloudy content or disconnected delivery. I have realized that instructional design is really about transforming complexity into clarity, not just organizing information.
Here is how I do it:
- I include real case scenarios and decision points wherever possible
- I use clean visuals and only keep what supports the message
- I cut jargon unless I'm teaching it
- I check that all the content connects to the learning objectives
- I test everything out by asking, "would this have helped me when I was new?
I really appreciated your post, especially the moment you described when a learner asked what they were actually supposed to do during their shift. I’ve had similar experiences finishing a lesson only to realize later that the content didn’t land the way I intended. Looking back on my early years of teaching, I was focused on getting through the material and didn’t always consider whether it was truly meaningful or accessible. Your bullet point list is incredibly helpful. I especially love your focus on clean visuals and real case scenarios.
ReplyDeleteI hadn’t heard the term andragogy before watching the video, but many of the principles, like building on prior experience and keeping content relevant, are strategies I also use with younger learners, especially in special education. Your emphasis on real-world application and simplicity really connected with me, and it was encouraging to see how those same ideas translate across learner age groups. When you're designing a course, how do you decide which real-world scenarios to include? Do you draw from your own experience, or collaborate with learners or subject matter experts to keep them current? Thanks for sharing your insight!
Thank you, Katie! It really means a lot that what I shared resonated with you.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that the bullet points were helpful! Clean visuals and real scenarios have been a game changer for me, especially when trying to give learners something to connect to. I also love the fact that you connected andragogy to your work. At the end of the day, revelance and clarity transcends to any age group.
To answer your question about real-world scenarios: I start by thinking about what confused me when I was newly hired, but I also rely on insights from subject matter experts. I hold quarterly meetings with department leads to find out what are the pain points in their departments for newly hired employees. This helps keep things grounded, current for me, and helps to design my learnings. I also reach out to employees from other departments to take the modules prior to me publishing for any feedback they may have. This helps to ensure that I have company wide feedback and by doing so, it makes leadership feel apart of the design process.