Written by: Marsha It’s 3:00 pm on a Friday and the training manager calls you to his/her office with the news…we need you to teach this new course on Monday. What? Well, the good news is you have the weekend to prepare but the bad news is you have the weekend to prepare! Can you relate? Talk about NOT being set up for success. Unfortunately, this is a reality in many corporations and certainly not ideal. I can remember a similar experience when I started out as a trainer. About 20 years ago, I delivered a course about the internet, with little prep time, and keep in mind, I’m as non-techy as they come. Needless to say, the class was a failure. I couldn’t answer questions and the participants were frustrated. Even after all this time, it still stings when I think about it. Now, for the good news. At Langevin, we recommend a thorough and comprehensive preparation plan for new instructors. Not only will it set them up for success, it will also reflect well on your training department. Here are our top ten tips: Assign a coach to oversee the instructor’s preparation. Determine what subject-matter preparation the instructor will require (e.g. reading procedure manuals or hands-on equipment training). Explain the details of the new course the instructor will deliver. Schedule an opportunity for the instructor to attend and observe the workshop being taught by another instructor. Schedule the instructor to observe a video recording of the course and write a personal lesson plan. Ask the instructor to prepare a list of any questions he/she may have about facilitating the course. Assign background reading to help the instructor understand and consolidate the course content. Schedule the instructor to conduct a dry run with the coach. Ask the instructor to revise the personal lesson plan based on suggestions given by the coach. Ask the coach to assess the instructor’s readiness to teach the new course. As for timing, we recommend one week of preparation time per day of training. Meaning, a three-day class would require three weeks of prep time. Can you imagine? No more weekends to learn a course on your own. I’m pleased to share that Langevin also practices what they preach. I remember like it was yesterday, even though it was over 15 years ago. When I was first hired, I was assigned a coach. Then, I observed a live workshop. Next, I watched VHS tapes of the workshop (yes, we had VHS tapes back then!) while following a lesson plan and adding my own notes. My coach worked with me, asking questions and hearing my transitions from page to page. I even had a "boot camp" with two other new trainers, where we each took a turn facilitating parts of the course. The VP and our manager asked us challenging questions to confirm we could deliver the goods. Talk about setting us up for success! So, training managers, how do you prep your instructors? If you’re interested in learning more about this and how to manage your department, then come to our Successful Training Manager workshop. You’ll lead your team to their highest potential and help your organization meet its goals!

Written by: Alan There are many reasons to conduct on-the-job training: a very small number of people need training, the work cannot be simulated effectively, or the skills don’t lend themselves to other forms of instruction. Sadly, a lot of on-the-job training is ineffective. It’s often called "sit with Nellie." An employee spends time with one of the top performers, with no plan or goal laid out. Somehow that person is expected to learn the skills in question through something akin to osmosis. Here are four instructional design tips that will produce better outcomes for on-the-job training. Produce a List of Job Skills to Teach A program may focus on specific parts of a job, or the entirety of the job. In either case, produce a list of the job tasks that will be taught. This provides many benefits. It gives direction to the trainer and the learner, focuses the efforts on skills rather than knowledge, helps track learning progress, and allows the trainer to note areas of strength and where more improvement is needed. Suggest Presentation Methods Many experts resort to explanation as their preferred means of presenting a process. This is known in training as the lecture method. The benefit of on-the-job training is that you can rely more often on demonstration as a presentation method. There are other techniques available as well. You can use discussion when the learner has some experience in the skill area. Reading is popular, especially when job documentation exists. As the instructional designer, you should provide suggestions on how to present each of the skill areas in your teachable skills list. This improves the odds the right methods will be used to cover each skill. Suggest Practice Activities Training should always include a practice component, where the learner actually develops the skills desired. On-the-job training is no exception. For each skill in your list, suggest ways the learner can practice. As the instructional designer you should include directions the trainer can provide to the learner to set both up for success. Outline items such as materials needed, information required, time available, and the means for determining success in the exercise. Provide Coaching Guidelines Good job skills do not mean good teaching skills. The person running on-the-job training will need both. Help the trainer facilitate learning by providing some coaching tips. Include items on how to ask questions, answer questions, give clear directions, monitor exercises, manage time, and give feedback. You can incorporate these tips directly into the document you’ve used to cover the previous items. On-the-job training is a powerful tool when used correctly. The trick is to make sure it isn’t just "sit with Nellie." Use the instructional design tips above to provide structure, guidance, and focus so both the trainer and the learner is successful. Happy (on-the-job) training!

Written by: Steve Don’t get me wrong, I like "new school." I enjoy technology in training: iPads in the classroom, mobile learning, virtual classroom, social media and the like. The impact of technology in training over the past few years has been dramatic! It is becoming a popular practice that when new training is required, organizations first think of e-learning as the default solution. I understand the appeal of all the benefits of e-learning, but let’s not forget what got us this far. New school is great, but let’s keep old school! Here are three reasons to keep "old school" techniques: Not all training belongs online. Many types of content are effectively presented and practiced online. Conceptual content, for example, can be delivered via an online lecture and then applied through an interactive and robust case study, followed by meaningful feedback. Teaching about software online, using creative demonstrations and interactive simulations, also works very well. However, when it comes to interpersonal skills training, the limitations of e-learning can be exposed. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but I still believe critical people skills are best practiced in a face-to-face environment. Keep doing what you are good at. If your traditional instructor-led training (ILT) is successful, meaning it produces on-the-job results and is financially viable, think long and hard about converting it to e-learning. A comfortable, safe classroom with a talented instructor, relevant content, and lots of hands-on practice, is hard to beat. Resist the temptation to sacrifice quality and results just to say you have courses online (unless you are mandated to do so). Use technology for the right reasons. ILT will continue to be an integral part of performance-based blended learning solutions for years to come. I have no problem continuing to embrace technology and leveraging it in training, however decisions around the use of technology in training should be made for the right reasons and not just because we can. We can do our banking online and yet we still have bank branches. We have internet TV but we still have cable. We have cell phones but we still have land lines. We have web-based tutorials, self-directed e-learning, and virtual classrooms but there is still an important role for traditional instructor-led training. New school is great but let’s keep old school.

Written by: Melissa If you’ve ever attended Langevin’s Instructional Design for New Designers workshop, you know that early on in the design cycle we cover project planning. At this stage in the process, we’re looking to identify potential design constraints and determine the timing parameters for our proposed design project. In an ideal world, instructional designers would be free to design a course however we see fit—free of any limitations that might impact the course design or delivery. But how often does that happen? In reality, most designers are faced with at least some constraints, things like: design and instructional time, budget, location and number of learners, and availability of subject-matter experts. As our newest virtual classroom workshop, Instructional Design for the Virtual Trainer, just launched, I thought it timely to share some of the design constraints we face when taking on a VC (virtual classroom) design project. Some design constraints are applicable to any type of training, while others are unique to the virtual classroom. There are nine critical design constraints for virtual classroom training. They’re critical because any one of them can have a significant impact on the decisions you make as a VC course designer. In this blog, we’ll look at five of the nine constraints. That’s right, if you want to know all nine, you’ll have to join us for the workshop! So, let’s have a look at some VC design constraints and the impact they have on your course design. What tools/features are available in your VC Platform? The answer to this question will have an impact on what methods you choose to present content and how your learners will practice/apply content (e.g. the more tools available to you, the more options you have to create interactive training that allows your learners to apply the content in a variety of ways.) Breakout rooms are the perfect example of a feature that allows for small group interaction. Does your VC platform play well with others? Certain systems or applications may not be compatible with your VC platform, limiting the ability to teach participants how to use the systems and/or applications (and have your learners practice using them). Also, certain file types may not upload to the virtual classroom, or may not display as intended. For instance, at Langevin, we use Adobe Connect as our VC platform. At the current time, Microsoft Word files aren’t supported by Connect, so we have to convert them to PDF’s. Will you have a Producer or Co-Facilitator available? Whether or not you have help in the VC will have an impact on what methods you choose to present content and have your learners practice it, since more complex methods (e.g. breakout rooms) may be challenging to set up and execute with only one facilitator. At Langevin, we’re fortunate enough to have management buy-in and support for a producer to help teach our virtual courses. What is the suggested/mandated virtual session length? Time-related constraints are likely to be the most common constraints you’ll face as a VC instructional designer, and impact the presentation and application methods you choose. You’ll need to carefully select methods that allow you to cover the content required given the amount of time you have to work with. You may also need to assign intersession work, and pre/post-course assignments. What is the suggested/mandated class size (number of learners)? Just as smaller class sizes are preferred for traditional, classroom-based training, the same is true for virtual classroom training. A smaller class size will allow for increased interaction, engagement, and practice opportunities. Whereas a larger class size will limit interaction, engagement, and practice activities, increasing the risk of having learners tune out from the training. At Langevin, we cap our VC class size at twelve. As you can see from the implications associated with each of the above design constraints, they can significantly impact the design of your virtual training course. Make sure you take the time to investigate (i.e. ask questions) before you start designing the course—you’ll be glad you did! Better yet, attend our Instructional Design for the Virtual Trainer workshop and we’ll guide you through the VC design process, step by step. Hope to see you there soon! For more information on virtual classroom training, check out these blogs!

Tony Bates in It's all about Millenials - or is it? explores the whole issue of we need to use technology because they are. He is right that we shouldn't accept this notion knowing all the facts and the lack of real, hard evidence for the net generation concept is worrying. I've never been an advocate of the idea that Millenials (this is first time I am hearing this particular word) are somehow wired differently. Anyone who’s experiences and uses Web 2.0 should be considered a Millenial, whatever their age.Also, it’s useful to see these characteristics of the net generation by Oblinger and Oblinger (2005a):digitally literate in the sense of being comfortable and familiar with digital technology connected to friends and the world through technology ‘immediacy’: rapid multi-tasking, fast response to communications - experiential: they prefer to learn by doing rather than being told highly social: ‘they gravitate toward activities that promote and reinforce social interaction’ group work: they prefer to work and play in groups or teams a preference for structure rather than ambiguity engagement and interaction: an orientation towards action and inductive reasoning rather than reflection a preference for visual (i.e. graphics, video) and kinesthetic learning rather than learning through text active engagement in issues that matter to millennialsIt’s worth noting that currently in Higher Education this is not the case for many. Certainly for my institution, The Institute of Education, which has a lot of mature and overseas students, it is common not to fit this profile. However, I would still advocate a strategy would has the above points in mind when it comes to learning design. This is because it’s up to any teacher/lecturer to design the best learning experience possible. If you believe the above is better than the normal didactic, transmissive model then it’s worth pursuing even if the class is out of their comfort zone initially. Just because you fulfil their expectations and experiences by doing "the norm", it doesn’t make it right.

In the post Social Media Supporting teacher CPD - 2 I talked about an idea for a session designed to give educators practical guidance on how to use social media for their learning. It would sit alongside 21st century tools for teaching and learning which I run about internet-based tools for use in teaching and learning. The rationale is that if educators start using social media for themselves and find value in this process they will naturally start thinking about how to use it within their teaching. It's a logical train of thought. It's difficult for educators to use tools in their teaching which have no relation to everyday practice. Part of this is to do with the dominance of sterile VLE features which look like they belong in 1995. But it's more about the concept of communicating in a fashion alien to them.I've fleshed this out a bit more in the above mindmap and divided it into personal and collaborative. The key with this type of session is making sense of these tools, stating clearly what they offer in their context and talking about it in types of activity rather than tool names. The aim is to reach those who don't have a clue, don't know where to start. The great mass of educators who are left behind and annoyed that no one is telling how to make sense of it all in easy to understand terms. Papers like tweeting for teachers won't have an impact without sustained initiatives of this type. I guess I'm trying to fill this gap albeit in a very small way.Under personal I've got:Aggregation• Knowledge seeking - micro-blog searching, browsing, slideshare - this is about the process of finding relevant information. Once you have your twitter people nicely followed and RSS feeds set up, it's just a matter of tweaking. However, if you start from scratch it's difficult to know where to start. I'll have to think about how best to advice on this because learning technology information flies out and grabs you. Other subject matter might well be different. There'll be information here on browsing too.• Knowledge storing - rss, twitter, social bookmarking - about storing the stuff you find by twitter following, rss and bookmarking. I could also talk about cloud storage here but this might not fit very well.Sense-making/learning• Note taking and highlighting - the various social media options for this activity which many would do by pen or word processing. So this would include tools like evernote, bounce, diigo, also I'll need to check out stand alone highligher tools. I used to use awesome highlighter but I'm sure there are better examples. I'm looking at website notetaking and dedicated notes tools like evernote which I use and like.• Brainstorming - This one's easy - mindmapping tools principally but I could also do drawing tools and things like thoughtbox and other task management tools.• Written Reflection - The culmination of everything for me is to blog and reflect.I could take participants on a journey by creating an account in google and then proceed to create and practice using areas for all the aggregation and sense making areas. It might be that a half day session on the personal side of things would be enough for one learning experience. However, if I wanted to go further and teach about collaborative learning in relationship to educator peer communication/collaboration, I would cover:• Synchronous Discussion: chat tools like titanpad or sync.in• Aynchronous Discussion: I'm not clear yet how this could run. I want to teach educators that, by engaging in discussion with peers they can learn lots. So it's about finding peer networks and having those discussions. More thinking to be done here on how best to teach this.• Collaborative document/text creation: Wikis and tools like google docs. Combination tools like google hangout need to be investigated.• Sharing: Sharing is one of those activities which don't seem valuable until you do it. So talking about the sharing ethos via twitter/slideshare/blogging with focus on twitter.• Group creation: Covering the ability to create private social network for groups using tools like google sites, ning, grouply etc.That's enough detail for talking about it to my colleagues (and specifically my boss). I would only need to prepare properly if it were to run. No doubt I'll reflect on it here if that's occurs.

Here are some reflections on using an online noticeboard tool and a collaborative bookmarking tool as part of a learning design process.21st century tools for teaching and learning is the title of session I run a couple of times a year and I'm running it again on 7th Feb.  Its a workshop where teachers in London can come and learn about a various of internet-based tools which they use in their teaching.  What I'm doing is aggregating what's out there, making sense of it and then articulating what I've learnt for those in schools.  If you are reading this post then you are probably minded to go out and find these things for yourself.  However, this session is aimed at the majority of educators who do not have the time or the inclination to do this.  I last ran it in May, 2011 and reflected on it here.  Its really interesting to reread past reflections on teaching so that I can remind myself what worked well and how it felt about it. My long term plan for this session is to break it up into1 hour long chunks and offer them after work so that there are easier and more managable for busy professionals to get to.  Anyway, that's for another time because this post is about the learning design process currently underway for the session.  For a session like this it's imperative that you keep learning in a fast changing world.  I'm not looking for cutting edge software instances of tool types that are quick and easy to use with clearly identifiable applications in education.For the second time, I'm lucky to have Isobel Bowditch help me with the session.  Firstly, we decided to examine what we've got and brainstorm ideas for the different tool type we wanted to cover and roughly how we are going to cover them.  Looking at the previous session programme, we had some practical elements where we get participants to practice using an instance of a tool type.  The others bit are demo or me talking.  There is 4:30 hours to fill.  I wanted to visually represent what we have so that we can make sense of it and easily play around the various components.  I chose one of the noticeboard tools - http://www.linoit.com/ and added a stickie for each element.  (Previously I've used http://www.wallwisher.com/  but I've found it to be unreliable on occasion.  The hard part is judging the timing and I've estimated 15mins for practical and 5 or 10 mins for demo/presentation elements.  We started by representing the existing programme.  21CT 01/12Then, there was a scoping exercise.For this we used various sites/documents which list or describe different tool types. This is pretty unscientific process which I described in the post Choosing social media/web 2.0 tools for use in teaching and learning.  So that Isobel and I could aggregate what we found, I decided to use a collaborative bookmarking service. This way we could both add things as we found them and then review together. I used http://www.diigo.com/. My preferred bookmarking service has swung back and forth from http://www.delicious.com/ to http://www.diigo.com/ a couple of times. The current delicious is good because of its simplicity. Its a pure bookmarking tool and adding something is very easy. Diigo's usability isn't great but it does groups which is what you need for this sort of exercise. So I created this group:http://groups.diigo.com/group/web20_learning And we started adding things and putting our comments on their suitability for our session. This meant that when we got together for another brainstorming session we could review the diigo group, visit and discuss the different tools and edit the linoit noticeboard.  This is the finished product.  I've used yellow for practical bits and blue for demo/presentation bits.  21CLearning Session: 07/02/12The next stage is to start fleshing out the design of the session.  Some of the tools that make the final cut need to studied so that we can teach others about them.  Also, in some instances we've identified that we want to do a practical bit on a particular tool type but have yet to identify the most suitable instance of that tool to use.Using linoit and diigo combined with face-to-face meetings we moved smoothly through the brainstorming portion of the learning design process in an organised and efficient way.  I can recommend both.   

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