Fine-Tune Your eLearning Program with These Instructional Design Tips

By definition, instructional design is a method of creating teaching lessons in a way that makes learning more efficient, fun, and effective. In many ways, good instructional design takes just a bit of know-how in combination with the experience of knowing what works and what doesn’t. With these design tips, you can fine-tune your eLearning experience for your adult learners.

Learn more instructional design basis in our article “Instructional Design: Who, What, Where, When and Why.”

Know Your Audience

Probably one of the most valuable tips, knowing your audience and what they bring to the table can help you as an instructor identify their performance gap. This gap is the area between what they already know and can do, and what they need to know and be able to do. By knowing what your audience is capable of, you will have an easier time creating a lesson that is effective for them.

Be S.M.A.R.T.

In each lesson, your learning objectives should be:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Targeted to your audience.

These objectives can help the development of your course flow naturally from lesson to lesson.

Keep Lessons On Task

Always remember to keep course content relevant to the task at hand. Avoid becoming too bogged down in side explanations and other areas. Additionally, ‘chunk’ large bits of course content into smaller, easier to grasp bits, which build upon themselves. By doing these two things you can help your learners pick up information faster and avoid confusion.

Use Different Media

Sometimes, people pick up information better from different sources. If written text is not quite getting through to some of your students, try implementing pictures and auditory lessons. Use a combination of text, narration, and graphics to help your students along.

“WIFM?”

A lot of adult learners will ask, “What’s in it for me?” Make the benefits of the course clear to them. Let your students know why they are learning something and how much it will help them in their jobs. This can help motivate your students and make them more confident in the program.

Using these tips and a bit of know-how, you can design lessons which will be easy to grasp and stick with your adult students. If you would like to know more about instructional design or eLearning, we invite you to visit our website, Twitter, or Facebook pages. Additionally, if you would like to ask us a question directly feel free to contact us.