What I've Learned
Working smarter; not harder.
Assessing Performance
I once worked in a health sciences college that held disaster simulations every semester. People were brought in to play victims with elaborate lacerations and detailed symptoms to act out. The intent was to provide students the opportunity to perform in a stressful environment under safe conditions. After the multiple-hour simulation, the students and instructors would debrief. This debrief in the Instructional Design world is called a Performance Assessment.
Performance Assessments are tests, checklists, or dialogue designed to evaluate performance and provide opportunities for improvement. This process creates a performance improvement feedback loop like the one below:
Assessments are designed to meet the criteria that are identified during a Performance Requirement analysis. In the example of the disaster simulation, there may have been several assessment measures used to evaluate student performance. We discussed the debrief; a dialogue type of assessment. However, if a student needed to dress a wound or give CPR during the simulation, they may have undergone a process assessment, which would evaluate their ability to conduct CPR given a set of required steps to ensure a success.
If the volunteer victim was filling out a satisfaction survey, they would be conducting a product assessment. They would be evaluating the end product of the student nurse's ability to provide compassionate care. Product assessments do not evaluate the process, like CPR, but the end result.
Once assessments are complete, remediation can be done as needed. This allows the learner to understand how they can improve and perform at a higher level next time. This feedback loop is an essential part of any successful instructional product.
Quadratic Conundrum
Remember the quadratic equation? You know… x equals negative b, plus or minus… or is it x equals b, plus or minus?? Ok. I’ll stop making you think so hard. I have known many people who have taken College Algebra more than once during the course of their undergrad (including me!). The quadratic equation is one of the pesky tools one must memorize. Reflect upon the quadratic equation below.
When I was an undergrad, I worked in the tutoring center. One thing I tutored was study skills. A study skills tutor was basically a problem solver for any obstacle a student was having during the learning process. As part of my Level 2 Certification through the College Reading and Learning Association, I had to create something for our learning center. I created a job aid for the quadratic equation.
A job aid is a tool used to complete any job or task. It could be a checklist, mnemonic, image, flowchart, or any supplement that helps someone successfully meet the criteria of a task.
When completing a task, there are conditions that must be met to complete the task correctly. Criteria are developed to evaluate the quality of the performance. These are referred to as performance requirements. With the quadratic equation, a performance requirement is to reach the correct answer. That seems all fine and good until you sit down to a test without the equation written out in front of you. Don’t look back up, but can you remember the quadratic equation from above??
In comes the job aid to save the day! Images are more memorable than words or letters. In fact, our brains developed to remember images long before written language. It’s how our primitive ancestors learned that leaves that looked a certain way were poisonous and clouds that were dark meant rain. Job aids that incorporate images use our brains wiring to help learners retain information. Take some time now to review the quadratic equation job aid below:
Negative b, plus or minus the square root of b squared, minus four AC (units), all over two a(pples). Look at each image and commit it to memory. Close your eyes and see if you can recite it now.
Easier? If so, then I did my job well. Job aids make life a little easier. After 10 years, this quadratic equation job aid still hangs in the same tutoring center, and students use it regularly to tackle this pesky algebra performance requirement.
When Over-Analyzing is the Goal
Performance Gap
One of the first concepts a new ID learns is how to identify a performance gap. Just as it sounds, a performance gap is a difference between desired and actual performance. In this project, we systematically broke down the desired and actual performance into statements that clearly outline the identified gap. By plugging these statements into the table, it’s much easier to identify the difference between what is happening now and what one wants to happen. This table is part of the Training Requirement Analysis, a document that defines the gap and discusses training options.
Learner Analysis
While conducting an initial interview with a client, you must take inventory of the learners who will be involved in your project. As discussed in my earlier blog post, Knowing Your Learner, empathy is important in understanding the needs of the learners as individuals. Using a standardized table to organize the information you collect about the learners can give you a wholistic view of the population you are working with. While the columns are set, the rows can be titled as any demographic, or skill set. This analysis is part of the Learner and Environmental Analysis document. This document is essentially a SWOT analysis related to the target population of the project.
There's a saying about making assumptions, but Operating Assumptions are a critical component in your instructional documents. The Task Analysis is a document that inventories every component of a given task. The task in our project focused on conducting a walk-through audit of a foodbank storage cooler.
Assumptions are important to define. It is the designer communicating to the client that the product being designed has limitations. One of the assumptions in our project was that job aids and training would be consistently used by leadership and employees. If the job aids are not used consistently, then the delivered product will not be effective; by no fault of the designer. Assumptions also help clue the client in to changes that could take place in the environment that may warrant a change to the job aids.
Read the list of assumptions to the right and consider what environmental changes could occur that would prompt a change in the designed learning.
Making Assumptions
Knowing Your Learner
September, 6th 2020
It takes a certain level of caring to be an Instructional Designer (ID). As a nurse uses tools and theory to care for the body, Instructional Designers use tools and theory to care for the mind; but not in the way a counselor does. While counselors focus on behaviors, IDs focus on performance; human performance.
Before you can design learning, you must know the learner and empathize with them. Knowing the learner means immersing yourself in their environment, understanding their needs and challenges, and really engaging and empathizing with them (Dam & Siang, 2018 as cited in Instructional Design Course Handbook, p. 17).
Provide your learners a safe environment and immediate feedback for optimal performance.
Performance-Based Training (PBT) is one of the tools IDs use to enable learners to quickly achieve their performance goals. PBT is hands-on learning in a safe, authentic environment that allows for immediate feedback and coaching (College of Engineering OPWL, p. 6). This training style provides three main features:
Guided observation - show the learners how
Guided practice - learners perform in a safe environment with real-time coaching
Demonstration of mastery - learners show their ability to perform new task
Consider the example of a child learning to walk in the safe confines of a parent's arms. First, they have observed their parents walking (guided observation). Next, they know they are in a safe environment, and the parent's arms provide immediate feedback while they learn to balance. The parent coaches the child and offers encouragement (guided practice). Finally, the child loosens their grasp and sets out on their own showcasing their new skill (demonstration of mastery).
While this level of nurturing is not necessary in the workplace, the main features remain the same. If your goal is to train skill effectively and efficiently, PBT may be the solution you're looking for.
College of Engineering OPWL (2019-2020). Instructional Design Course Handbook (2nd Edition). Boise, ID. Boise State University. Retrieved August 29, 2020 from https://drive.google.com/file/d/18chHmGMpsDpM4640b9bWeFAuo8Hj3B
Inadvertent ID
August 29, 2020
As a learning center professional and tutor, I became proficient in performing learner analyses in an efficient, intuitive way. Any struggling student could seek me out, sometimes distraught to tears, and it was my job to evaluate what they already knew and what they needed to know; i.e. conduct a learner analysis. Through listening to the student (and sometimes, the faculty and dean) I did a task analysis to identify exactly what needed to be addressed, and a training requirements analysis to identify what I could offer the student. This was a cyclical process that allowed me to find patterns in student performance. When this happened, it was easy to preemptively provide the training to a whole group of students to offer the knowledge before they ever reached the point of distress.
Instructional design (ID) is something I have been participating in long before I ever knew the term. From my undergraduate journey developing and conducting workshops on how to build memory palaces, to my years managing an academic resource center, I have been evaluating, developing, and implementing training products designed to meet the educational needs of a given group of individuals. It seems silly to look back to the first semester I designed an online course and thought, “Shucks! I’m an Instructional Designer now!” Truth is, I had been doing it for years under the titles of Tutor, Tutor Supervisor, and Student Support Coordinator. The Organizational Performance and Workplace Learning (OPWL) department at Boise State University (BSU) explain in their Instructional Design Course Handbook that ID’s complete projects for specific clients in order to facilitate desired behavior changes (p. 3). Sounds familiar! Since I’ve been doing that all these years, I guess it’s time I buckle down and really learn the ropes. Thanks to the OPWL program at BSU, I’m well on my way.
College of Engineering OPWL (2019-2020). Instructional Design Course Handbook (2nd Edition). Boise, ID. Boise State University. Retrieved August 29, 2020 from https://drive.google.com/file/d/18chHmGMpsDpM4640b9bWeFAuo8Hj3B
The OPWL Program took my skills to the next level. Learn more here: