Deep in Design Details

Cathy Moore has been inspiring me for months, now. It began with Action Mapping, a way to design eLearning with business goals in mind and job behaviors to change.

It revolutionized how I approach instructional design. I discontinued beginning a course with an information dump (interesting, yet a glut of info) and moving towards comprehension checks.

Her next influence was on learner feedback. Instead of "Yes, you are correct." or "No, did you consider...", Cathy encourages designers to make learners think.

I created scenarios posing a situation to the learners which forced them to make a decision and then showed results of their decisions. This technique worked well in an online course I developed for beginning Interns, teaching them troubleshooting with Central Venous Line Insertions. Below, you can see the scenario and results.

Now, I'm working on a cultural competency online course and will continue to use Cathy's fresh approach to allowing learners to think.

Whew! First blog article in months!