logistics – an important part of instructional design

Posted by Gina Rosenthal in instructional design | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

This a medicine-induced blog post (yay flu) – so its sort of a stream of consciousness post.

We learn by doing. Work is learning. When we design training, we try to figure out what people need to do, then we design the training so learners can quickly build mental bridges between what they already know, and what they need to learn to do.

One important thing we do is eliminate any barrier to learning. In an ILT (instructor led training), its making sure the room environment is comfortable, you take breaks, etc etc. If you teach technology, you also need to add in all of the things that can go wrong with technology. Are the lab machines up to date – can they run the software you need to teach the class? What happens if the network goes down? Do the students need to do any prep work?

The main thing is to remove all the tech barriers that will aggravate students. You want them to save all that mental stress for the tech topic you are actually teaching.

This gives you many skills. It forces you to think of things systematically, and not just operationally. It puts you in a continual improvement mindset. It helps you get really good at planning events. It helps you with all sorts of logistical planning.

And it may seem like silly logistical stuff, but its actually an important part of instructional design. And if you do it right, no one even realizes how much work went into make something go smoothly.

 

 

 

 

One Response to logistics – an important part of instructional design

  1. Lisa says:

    Enjoy your blog. I like the idea of removing the tech barriers. As an adult learner and corporate trainer, technology is many times the reason people don’t continue or follow-through!

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