Principle #11: Understand what motivates your learners and what gets in their way
“Teachers open the door. You enter by yourself.”
- Chinese proverb
What prompts a learner to enter that door? What motivates your learners to successfully complete an activity? What gets in their way? Designing for learning is often a delicate balancing act. You must know what will inspire scholarship and what might immobilize or inhibit inquiry. (See Table 2.) In other words, you must light the path and steer them to the door.
For example, if you know that your learners are going through a particularly busy or stressful period, consider delaying your educational requirement until another time. On the other hand, if you know that your learners are eager to advance or improve a competency, or adapt to a changing situation, create opportunities for them to achieve those goals.
Light the path and steer them to the door.
MOTIVATIONS: |
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OBSTACLES |
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The following is a partial list of motivators which drive a learner to successfully complete a learning activity. |
The following is a partial list of obstacles which may inhibit or immobilize a learner from successfully completing a learning activity. |
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Lack of time: conflicting demands, multiple responsibilities Confidence: pressure to prove competence, meet a requirement, maintain licensing, learn new skill Lack of interest: lack of information indicating relevance to learner-pressure or fear of failure |
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Principle #12: Peer reviews and pilot testing will keep you from getting stung
If you send out your learning activity without putting your content through a rigorous peer review and a pilot test (see Table 3), you are inviting problems that you might not have expected. If something is wrong, or simply too confusing, your learners will swarm and let you know!
Conduct two peer reviews
Creating learning materials can take some time, and involve a number of people. Even the best educator can make a mistake. To avoid getting stung by unexpected problems, you should put your learning content through a careful peer review with another expert at least twice during the process – once in the beginning and once near the end of developing the activity.
Pilot test
Following the final peer review, allow time to conduct a small handful of pilot tests. To conduct a pilot test, recruit three to four members from your target audience. Ask these learners to step through the entire learning activity. Ask them whether the information and the sequence of the learning content made sense to them. Check their quiz scores to verify.
Allow some time after the pilot test period to make any necessary adjustments to the learning activity before rolling it out to your entire audience.
You’ll be glad you did this. Managing your e-mail will be much less painful, too!
Peer Review: |
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Pilot Test |
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Review once in the beginning, and once near the end of developing the activity. |
Check for problem areas. |
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Why
do it? |
Why
do it? |
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Who’s
included?
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Who’s
included?
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Conclusions
Long-established adult learning principles are still highly relevant in e-Learning.
When you omit or ignore one or more of these principles, it affects learning outcomes negatively.
Successful course development hinges upon the appropriate application of these time-honored principles.
Parting gifts
How to succeed as an educator, SME, CLO, Instructional Designer
- Be curious: Listen to your stakeholders but also be curious about your learners in order to interpret effectively.
- Focus on outcomes: Be both a learner advocate and a stakeholder advocate. Learner success is stakeholder success.
- Facilitate learning: Make it compelling - not cumbersome. Learner motivation is the biggest challenge we face (and it’s often out of our control).
References
Dewey, John; Boydston, Jo Ann; Hook, Sandy. The Later Works, 1925-1953. Volume 17: 1885-1953, pp 269-284.
