Imagine the following real-life learning scenario: Your sister is a nervous Nelly and has begged you to help your 15.9-year-old nephew Ben get the required 100 hours of on-the-road driving practice he needs before taking his driver’s test. You agreed. (Congrats! You’re a saint!) The desired goal is to make sure that he can drive safely and confidently in typical road and traffic conditions and in difficult ones. Which learning activities are most crucial for achieving the desired goal?
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This is pretty easy, right? Some of the most typical and difficult road and traffic conditions he’ll need to be able to confidently handle as a driver include thinking ahead to be ready to make the next turn, people driving erratically (changing lanes abruptly and the like), poor weather conditions, congested traffic, and needing to merge into traffic. So the most crucial learning activities will be driving in these conditions until he can do them well and with confidence.
Picking appropriate and effective learning activities for most instructional situations works exactly like the scenario I just described. Figure out what learners need to be able to do in the real world and then make sure they get plenty of practice doing it. I’ve given away the most important advice of this article in the last sentence and if you’re pressed for time, you could stop reading right now. But you should keep reading because...
Even though it’s almost that simple, a lot of instruction doesn’t do this. I see courses every day that claim to train people to do x or y that do not have learning activities where learners do much x or y. This is a situation in need of a remedy because we really can’t design courses to train people to do x or y when they don’t get adequate practice doing x or y. Am I right?
In this article, I’m going to discuss a simple process that will help you get to the following place each time you design instruction: Figure out what learners need to be able to do in the real world and then make sure they get adequate practice doing it during instruction.
This is a “play along” article in which you’ll be completing some activities and then comparing your answers to mine. Note that a variety of answers are “right” because there are numerous ways to practice, and numerous types of media that can support each selected activity. So don’t worry if you don’t have the exact same answers as I do, but rather worry that what you select gets you to the place described in the last paragraph.
A simple process
In the next three sections, I’ll describe a simple process that I follow with clients to make sure that courses have the most-crucial learning activities, learning activities that assure that learners get adequate practice doing (during instruction) what they need to be able to do on the job, after instruction.
Figure 1 shows what this simple process looks like. (“DO” is not an abbreviation – it’s the things people must DO in order to be successful in the real world.)
Figure 1. A process for connecting learning activities to real-life activities.
Let’s look at each of these steps individually.
1. Uncover the DOs
One of the hallmarks of good instruction is that it allows learners to practice doing what they need to be able to DO in real life, in a safe environment, with meaningful feedback and help, until they are able to DO what they need to be able to DO in real life effectively.
What do people DO in real-life? Table 1 shows the most typical DO types of real-life work, and some examples of each.
|
DO Types |
DOs (examples) |
|
1. Recall facts |
Business hours Pay dates |
|
2. Find and make sense of information, often with the aid of tools, resources, etc. |
Whether the caller’s service plan covers labor When timesheets are due on weeks with a holiday |
|
3. Understand underlying concepts |
How databases work Why you need overnight shipping for perishable items |
|
4. Know how a process works |
The travel expense reimbursement process The hiring process |
| 5. Complete needed steps |
How to complete a new-hire request How to check in new stock |
| 6. Determine which course of action is needed |
Ascertain the malfunction cause(s) and contact the appropriate department Determine whether to give a refund or a credit |
|
7. Create a product or produce a specific result |
Write a discrepancy report Transfer callers to another extension |
|
8. Troubleshoot and fix problems |
Find the damaged part and replace it Analyze the reason for the delay and suggest solutions |
As an example, Table 2 lists DOs (for each DO type) for a module of a customer skills course for telephone sales representatives.
|
Course: Customer Services Skills Module 4: Finding an Out-of-Stock item for a Customer |
|
|
DO Types |
DOs |
|
1. Recall facts |
When new shipments arrive How long it takes to check new shipments into a database What the database codes are for in-stock, out-of-stock coming in on [date], out-of-stock [no date], and out-of-stock discontinued |
|
2. Find and make sense of information, often with the aid of tools, resources, etc. |
Find item in database Determine whether item is in stock, out-of-stock coming in on [date], out-of-stock [no date], or out-of-stock discontinued Determine how many pieces are available in each location |
|
3. Understand underlying concepts |
How databases work |
|
4. Understand how a process works |
The stock check-in process |
|
5. Complete needed steps |
Place hold on stock in your location Request stock from another location |
|
6. Determine which course of action is needed |
Help customer decide whether to wait for new shipment or get item from another location |
|
7. Create a product or produce a specific result |
Acquire desired item for customer Satisfy the customer |
|
8. Troubleshoot and fix problems |
Reconcile database availability and on-shelf availability |
If you don’t know what people DO in real-life, the pre-step is to learn what people do. That likely involves watching them work, asking questions, seeing what tools they use and what problems they deal with, and so on. Sounds like a lot of work, I know, but it’s impossible to understand a person’s job without doing this. And it’s impossible to design good instruction without understanding the work it impacts.
