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CREATING e-LEARNING THAT MAKES A DIFFERENCE

by Ethan Edwardschief instructional strategist

allen interactions

Creating e-Learning that Makes a Difference 1


Table of Contents

An Interaction is a Terrible Thing to Waste . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Failed Opportunities of Online Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Obstacles to Designing Online . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Instructional Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Typical Example of the Failure of the Content-Centered Approach . . . . . . . . . 3

Engage the Learner – One Possible Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Add Visual Appeal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Build a Relevant Contextual Setting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Tell a Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Create Suspense . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Challenge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Consequence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Difficulty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Outcome . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Activity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

Limited Range of Learning Activities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10

Practice Makes Perfect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11

Two e-Learning Approaches Compared . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Drag-and-Drop Interactivity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .12

Value in Creating Effort Around User Response . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Judgment vs . Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Feedback as a Tool for Content Presentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Using Intrinsic Feedback . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14

Delaying Judgment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15

Presenting Consequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16

Bringing it All Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

2 Creating e-Learning that Makes a Difference

e-Learning provides well-documented advantages to the corporate learning arena: reduced costs, improved tracking, global access, immediacy of updates, etc . Given the attractiveness of these benefits, it is not surprising how little attention is paid precisely to the training that is being delivered via the web . Learning requires more than access and simplistic measures of comprehension to have any lasting effect . The real benefit of e-learning will come to those who can design learning that actually changes learners’ skills while still achieving the opera-tional advantages that e-learning offers organizations . Yet much e-learning is composed of largely wasted opportunities for useful interactivity . This article provides a framework to guide the design of e-learning that has some chance to achieve lasting performance change .

e-Learning modules need to be intentionally designed for online delivery . Training designed for other delivery channels and simply transferred to the online environ-ment fail to take advantage of the opportunities made possible with online technology .

Here are a couple things that instructional designers seem to forget when designing e-learning:

1 . The mere presence of technology in a learning en-vironment does not change the essential aspects of how people learn . We know with little doubt that learning does not occur passively . In live teaching, lecture formats with minimal activity on the part of the learner do not work very well . Yet somehow de-signers create e-learning lessons that are little more than exercises in sitting and listening or reading .

2 . Learners need to be intellectually engaged for learning to happen . Lasting change requires mean-ingful and compelling mental engagement and interaction with one’s surroundings .

The Failed Opportunities of Online Learning

It’s easy to point out what’s wrong with blind transfer of instructor-led training to online learning . It’s somewhat harder to know precisely what to do instead . There are three really important capabilities of e-learning that unfortunately are missed in many online lessons, greatly reducing the impact they should have .

1 . e-Learning can provide an individualized experience. This is a powerful idea that goes well beyond the simplistic ideas of individuals working alone, working at a time of their own choosing, or working at their own pace . Certainly, these are all important features, but the idea of “individualization” means much more than this . It means that each student gets precisely the instruction he or she needs . This is largely impos-sible in group learning environments . To achieve this, the instruction needs to adapt to individual differences, providing more practice for those who need it, and less for those who demonstrate mastery . Such adaptability has to be part of the design .

2 . e-Learning can provide a safe harbor for learner mistakes. Learning has a difficult time happening unless the learner is free to make mistakes . When in a class of one’s peers, a lot of activity (or more often, inactiv-ity) is spent trying to NOT make mistakes so as to not look stupid in front of the teacher of classmates . e-Learning has the potential to create an environment that encourages exploration (and the consequent mistakes) and vital learning . Of course this is defeated when every single online interaction is immediately judged, scored, and reported .

3 . e-Learning can be a continuing source of reference infor-mation. Training rarely happens at the time that skills will be needed . Sometimes success depends on the learner re-learning course content weeks or months later when it becomes useful . When a classroom experience is finished, learners rarely have access to the instructor for follow-up, and the materials are


An Interaction is a Terrible Thing to Waste


often created to really only make sense in conjunc-tion with classroom presentations . e-Learning, on the other hand, can provide continuous access to learning content for learners to review, access as reference, relearn, etc . as their own needs dictate .

If we as designers would embrace the challenges offered by these three amazing capabilities, e-learning could begin to live up to the grand expectations that have grown up around the field .

Obstacles to Designing Online

Unfortunately, we are at a severe disadvantage when trying to design instruction to be delivered online via computer . Training is all about communication, and effective communication relies on a rich network of tools to exchange information between mentor and learner . A live teacher has a wide array of mechanisms to convey information to the learner: speech, gesture, proximity, inflection, pacing, humor, improvisation, body language, and all sorts of classroom media, such as printed materials, video, audio, etc . The learner has a similarly rich menu of ways to send information back to the teacher, making it possible for the teacher to monitor the learning process .

But consider when instruction is separated from face-to-face contact and placed in the context of com-municating through the limited methods available via computer . The “telling” part is still reasonably rich, with text, audio, graphics, animation, and video available to deliver a message . But the return channel is ridiculously limited . Except for the rare cases where specialized control devices are available, the only communication paths available to the learner are pointing at, clicking on, or dragging an image, or pressing keys on a keyboard . This is a considerable disadvantage to overcome . Only a small portion of what we try to teach via e-learning actually involves pointing at images or pressing keys .

So our real challenge as designers of e-learning is not so much how to best convey information (that part is relatively easy), but rather, it is in designing experi-ences that engage learners in meaningful activities — activities in which the otherwise trivial activities of pointing and pressing of keys take on a significance that represents meaningful thinking .

Instructional Interactivity

The idea of instructional interactivity (as opposed to just interactivity) is an important design focus to capitalize on the potential presented by e-learning technologies . Instructional interactivity is defined by Dr . Michael W . Allen as “interactivity that actively engages the learner’s mind to do those things that improve ability and readiness to perform effectively” . While this definition is direct and complete it may not be precisely clear what it means to a designer . It means that the interac-tivity we design for e-learning must require the learner to do something that is cognitively demanding, and leads to improved performance . At a practical level, then, this means we need to begin designs at a point different than most designers are accustomed to . Most designs begin with content — what the learner needs to know . Instead, design needs to center around what the learner needs to DO .

This is a significant but crucial paradigm shift . We are easily misled by our subject matter expert colleagues to focus almost exclusively on getting the content right and complete . That is not enough . We have to create an opportunity for the learner to apply the content to solve some problem or achieve some meaningful end .

Typical Example of the Failure of the Content-Centered Approach

Many organizations have adopted SMART objectives in their performance evaluation process . SMART is an acronym to indicate five key qualities of performance objectives:

S pecific

M easurable

A chievable

R elevant

T ime-bound

I have seen a number of e-learning lessons that provide thorough definitions of these elements (including snazzy graphical presentations of the concepts) and then assess the learner’s ability to restate these qualities . Success in the lesson may indicate gained knowledge, but there is little reason to feel confident that the result will be significantly better objectives because there is

Creating e-Learning that Makes a Difference4

• The learner could be required to specifically identify the five required components in each objective (by dragging the five letters to words or phrases or tabbing through the sentence and pressing the corresponding letter to indicate functional relevance), demonstrating comprehension of the applied meaning of each of the five requirements .

• For objective statements lacking one or more of the key elements, the learner could be asked to add phrases to transform the objective into one that satisfies the SMART definition .

• After this application practice, it would be entirely fitting to then ask the learner to create a personal-ized SMART objective and type it online . The learner could then apply the same judgment process used previously to meaningfully assess the completeness of the objective and fix it . Ideally the learner could print these personalized objectives to take away from the e-learning .

• With network connectivity, the learner could finally submit the objective for review by a live instructor or even for posting in a group bulletin board where the work of cohorts could be shared .

These simple activities provide meaningful engagement with the core challenges associated with the learning task in a way that parroting back the literal meaning of SMART will never accomplish . But also, this plan does not require any especially challenging technical obstacle . All the literal interactivity could be created simply with stan-dard interactivity styles: buttons, hot spots, key-presses, option drag-and-drop, and text entry formats .

The beauty of an approach such as this is that it takes the learner right up to the performance level that is required

so little attention paid to what the learner must do . The result is something like the useless trivial interactivity displayed below (Figure 4.A) .

In a good class experience, a learner would be expected to write some sample SMART objectives and then get some specific coaching from the instructor . This is what the learner must do in performance environment, so learning will be incomplete unless the task of writing a SMART objective is actually included . Unfortunately, this is not a practicable approach in most e-learning systems due to the challenges in judging free-form responses from the learner . Abandoning the desirable, though, does not mean we must revert to the trivial . There are a num-ber of ways to engage the learner in meaningful tasks that will lead toward skillful writing of SMART objectives .

Engage the Learner – One Possible Approach

• First, the lesson could provide a range of pre-written objectives and let the learner judge whether each statement satisfies the SMART criteria or not . The power in this teaching moment comes when the learner must justify his answer . This would be done in a number of successive steps of graduated complexity (Figure 4.B) .

Simple yet effective use of judgment and justification

Is this a SMART objective?

Reduce telephone expenses within the first half of the fiscal year.

YES NO

Press the letter of the SMART component that is missing.

Reduce telephone expenses within the first half of the fiscal year.

S M A R T

Typical trivia recall interactivity

The “S” in SMART objectives stands for:

A. Successful

B. Specific

C. Simple

D. Scalable

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Instead, he wrote about a small boy encountering a mysterious, threatening, escaped convict in a cemetery, and created the context for Great Expectations that carries the reader through hundreds of pages of “content,” and in doing so, makes the moral lesson at the heart of the work, unforgettable .

Most people recall successful learning experiences not so much by the content learned, but rather by the circumstances in which it was learned . So when all e-learning looks the same, an important teaching tool is effectively neutralized for the designer . When the immediate impression of an interface or presentation is, “This is exactly the same as everything else you’ve already been bored with,” it’s no wonder that learners tune the message out . Relying on the content itself to engage the learner is usually too little, too late . By the time the content message is delivered, learners have already decided if the piece is going to be interesting or not .

So how does one create compelling context? It is a fine balance . Context can easily overpower content . I’ve seen this when an intricate game framework is super-imposed on top of content without regard to meaning or relevance, or when the complexity and accuracy of a simulation obscures and complicates the delivery of a simple message . The more common problem, though, is simply the lack of any meaning or memorable context for delivering the message and creating interest . While there is an art to creating good context, it is not particularly difficult . The discussion that follows outlines four simple ways to establish context .

Add Visual Appeal

Long before words or content can have an impact, the visual impact of the piece communicates interest or lack thereof . Half of our brains are focused on processing visual imagery as opposed to verbal information . Using shapes, color, and images quickly draws us in . Look at the screen shots on the next page regarding (Figures 6.A and 6.B) two lessons that teach the same banking content . You don’t even need to be able to read the screen text to feel an immediate attraction to one as opposed to the detached neutrality of the other .

Many authoring tools and productivity add-ons to script-ing systems attempt to simplify by creating a uniform,

in the job . Transfer is the degree to which skills learned in the learning environment carry over to the performance environment . The closer the training tasks are to real world, the greater the likelihood of transfer . The traditional content-bound approach leaves an enor-mous gap between its limited learning tasks (identify definitions) and performance tasks (write a complete SMART objective) . In the engagement-focused approach, the lesson at least approximates what the learner will do on the job — transfer is likely to be much greater .

So the first step in maximizing the effectiveness of e-learning is to find those tasks that enable proficiency and then build interactivity that focuses attention there . If the real world environment is too complex, then simplify or create an alternative context in which to practice the skill . But as you simplify, always ensure that the performance tasks are retained as other elements are streamlined .

Achieving instructional interactivity in a lesson requires a holistic view of the design . Rather than just stringing standard questioning formats together in a logical sequence, the design must create a meaningful experience in which the learner operates . That experience requires four integrated components: Context, Challenge, Activity, and Feedback .

Context

Context is the first element that a learner encounters in a lesson . The message conveyed by the context begins in the first seconds of exposure and very quickly sets the learner’s attitude for the learning that will proceed . At a very basic level, the learner decides if a lesson is going to be boring or interesting based on immediate impressions . The value of starting out with relevance, pleasure, or even suspense, cannot be underestimated . Great writers know this . One of my favorite writers, Charles Dickens, was a master of this . Not unlike authors of e-learning, he had a strong intent to teach his readers . Dickens’ learning objectives just happened to be moral messages rather than skills . But unlike e-learning authors, he knew enough to not expect his readers to be intrigued by statements like, “After reading this book, the reader will be able to act selflessly in human relationships .”


Tell a Story

The context should create an environment that the learner doesn’t wish to leave . Too often, e-learning copy is written in the style of documentation . Technical writing is measured a success if it is accurate and complete . But accuracy and completeness are of little value if the text is never even read . Creative narrative writers and storytellers know that the success of a piece depends on how information is carefully delivered (and even withheld) from the reader .

The same ideas need to be applied to writing e-learning copy . Just as in a good story, an e-learning piece needs to lead the learner through a compelling journey . Some basic tools in storytelling are plot and characters . These elements can be easily added to content just by describing situations with real details . Consider the example on the next page (Figure 7.A) that teaches a corporate diversity policy . An unengaging treatment would state the policies, explain them, and ask comprehension questions . In the example (Figure 7.A), the same policies are taught compellingly by presenting an email from a specific

completely neutral context in which to dump all content . Templates, which suggest that e-learning is best devel-oped this way, are really only useful if context is irrelevant to learning . Even if time and skill constraints force you to use standard, linear lesson structures as a starting point, figure out how to create distinctive context through adding custom backgrounds and visual elements .

Build a Relevant Contextual Setting

It’s a cliché to state that “A picture is worth a thousand words,” but the statement is no less true just because it’s overused . Creating visual representations of the perfor-mance environment can make an enormous difference in quickly immersing the learner in a real situation . The visual cues will be more appealing, but more importantly, they will convey information more quickly and fully . Consider the two treatments (Figures 6.C and 6.D) of the same content . The task is to evaluate 5 possible statements made by employees and select the one that represents the greatest threat to workplace security . The content is identical, but the degree of engagement is worlds apart .

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context to present an environment of mildest but still effective suspense . The learner has to create an attrac-tive and nutritious fruit tray . This could easily have been a tedious set of true/false questions . It still is at its heart seven true/false questions, but the empty tray presents a tantalizing challenge for the learner to fill and learners feel suspense, or at least enhanced anticipation, to see what will happen when the tray is full .

Sounds simplistic? Indeed it is, but using these contextual design tools — appeal, real situation, story details, and suspense — create the groundwork on which interactions that are compelling, satisfying, and effective can be built .

Challenge

The great benefit of creating a powerful and meaningful context is that it creates an opportunity for engaging the learner in a compelling and non-trivial challenge .

When we talk about challenge in the context of an e-learning course’s instructional design, we’re considering the part of the experience that creates in the learner some desire, some urgency, some willingness to perform . The e-learning simply provides visual (and sometimes auditory) stimuli to which the learner must respond . But we want our learners to be actively engaged in carrying out the most successful responses to the tasks presented . And this is mainly a function of the sense of challenge embodied in the e-learning .

The common reaction to most e-learning as being boring is more about the lack of a challenge than some intrinsic boring quality of content . Learners need to know that there’s something personal at stake in the training . They need to know that what they do actually matters . When the learner makes forward progress equally, whether an answer is correct or incorrect, he or she learns that it does not really matter what one gives as an answer . If appropriate tools are not available to help learners reason out an answer, learners assume (correctly) that more or less random guessing is as reasonable a strategy for success as thinking out the answer . If there is no real chance for the learner to fail, then failure or success is a matter of indifference . And if the performance required of the

named colleague with a juicy problem . The teaching lessons are identical, but the contextual factors create a presentation that is hard to resist .

Create Suspense

Closely related to storytelling is the creation and resolution of suspense as a way to draw in the learner . It may seem in some ways ironic, but a great way to get people to continue to listen is to withhold information from them . As long as there is something that the learner values that the lesson promises to deliver, the learner is unlikely to disengage . This can be as complex as actually creating a mystery of sorts where the lesson works toward some kind of true resolution, or it can be as simple as grouping tasks together and delaying the time that judgment is finally given .

The example below (Figure 7.B) deals with something as simple as teaching kitchen workers the fresh fruits that should be dipped in lemon juice before serving to prevent browning . That doesn’t seem like a topic rich with suspense! But the simple interaction below uses

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soda versus baking powder . The initial question is an easily-guessed true/false variation: look at the recipe and choose if it calls for baking soda or baking powder .

The instructional consequence becomes apparent, though, in the follow-up question: What makes this a baking soda recipe? The learner must identify those ingredients that contain acid ingredients and thus indicate that baking soda is required . Guessing is no longer a viable strategy . The challenge requires that the learner very specifically pay attention to the critical aspects of the content .

Difficulty

A common strategy to add challenge to e-learning is just to make the questions harder . If the answer is not obvious, learners will think harder and learn better, right? Well, not exactly . It’s really difficult to write good test questions in a standard multiple choice format . Often irrelevant rules, such as “Always choose the longest answer,” or “Always choose ‘All of the above’,” or even

learner seems pointless or irrelevant, there will be little motivation to work toward that end .

Designing meaningful challenges, then, is a critical skill in creating instructional interactivity in e-learning . The challenge can be overt or just implied . The main thing is that the learner knows that success is possible, but that it is not necessarily guaranteed without some exertion of mental effort and personal investment . Consequence, difficulty, risk, and meaningful outcomes are four specific elements that designers can manipulate to add challenge to interactivity .

Consequence

Consequence is simply the dependence of an outcome on what has come before it . We are all generally tuned to heeding consequences, and in almost all cases, try to do those things that result in better consequences, avoiding negative impacts . When no consequence to a choice exists, there’s no real reason to invest any time pondering the options . Below (Figure 8.A) is an example of typical e-learning interactivity that provides no meaningful consequence, even though each question is judged . The same thing happens whether the learner is correct or not .

One effective way to build consequences without punishing the learner is simply to have them justify their answers . When the learner knows that he or she will have to demonstrate why a particular answer is correct or incorrect, it is unusual for answers to be given thoughtlessly . “If I am going to have to do the work to figure this out eventually anyway, I might as well do it now,” is the way the thinking goes . This is illustrated in the example to the right (Figures 8.B and 8.C), a culinary techniques e-learning series that teaches the different use of baking

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ics, game boards, avatars, and scoreboards don’t create lasting urgency on their own . What gives a game its drawing power is the fact that the player could actually lose . Creating the possibility of failure, while still making sure that success is possible, will keep learners involved for as long as it takes to achieve success .

There are a number of simple ways to create this risk . One of the simplest is to demand error-free performance . In the Union Bank of California Front Line Loss Prevention curricu-lum, each module ends with a ten-item test . The learner must earn 100% or do the assessment over again (Figure 9.B) . What helps, of course, is that the test is composed of real-life performance challenges presented in a visually stimulating context . But the risk of failure based on even a single mistake heightens the concentration and active learning undertaken by the learner .

It is vitally important when introducing risk into a learning environment to build in varying degrees of risk . Risk should change based on the learner’s skills . There are sophisticated models of adaptive testing that can be difficult to implement, but a simple strategy to achieve a similar end is the technique of leveling: start with easier levels and work up to higher levels with greater risk . This technique was used in the training to teach cooking times to restaurant short order cooks . Early levels practice with relatively simple challenges (Figure 10.A); later levels present much more difficult tasks (Figure 10.B) . Keeping all activities at the entry level would fail, because the training fails to account for the challenge in the real world . But starting at the hard level would not work because most learners would have no chance of success . Leveling adjusts the level of risk as the learners’ competence grows .

“Always choose ‘C’,” can be surprisingly effective ways to pass many e-learning assessments .

But many attempts to make the questions harder just vary the irrelevant aspects of how the question is constructed to make it difficult . I’m thinking of those questions starting, “Which one of the following is NOT true:” and then present options laced with negatives and complex conjunctions . Questions of this ilk so often test reading comprehension and test taking instincts more than actually assessing performance gains .

Difficulty — at least difficulty that enhances learning and engagement — can be used very effectively if it focuses the learner’s attention on critical aspects of the skills being taught . A basic multiple choice question is used in Kaiser Permanente’s Motivating Change for Pediatric Weight Management course below (Figure 9.A) . The “content” of the course is to teach health care counselors to use open-ended questioning and a collaborative conversation style when speaking with young people . The questions are hard, not because of some trick of writing, but because the learner must read very carefully to make correct choices . The differences in the choices are exactly those things that characterize open-ended questions or collaboration .

Risk

Risk sounds like a bad thing, but in the context of creat-ing a spirit of involvement in an e-learning activity it is one of the most effective tools available . Designers often admire the appeal that games hold over their users and dream of building that level of dedication in users of their e-learning applications . Designers often get it wrong, though, in inserting only the superficial game-like aspects into an e-learning piece . Cute graph-

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Visit alleninteractions.com/e-learning-demos to view this course.


http://alleninteractions.com/e-learning-demos



learning activities is the key to making a difference in expanding learner’s skills through engaging interactivity .

Activity

Activity in an interaction is defined by the physical respons-es and actions that the learner is required to perform to achieve success . Unfortunately, most personal computers provide a ridiculously restricted range of possible activities for the learner to engage in . The two activities relied on most frequently are reading and listening — activities which the e-learning program has no effective way of monitoring whether they are even being done! Learners know this full well, and so, in many cases, they choose to skip these activities and simply move through lessons, neither reading nor listening in any particularly productive way . It’s hard for learning to occur when the primary designed learning activities are being skipped .

Limited Range of Learning Activities

Recognizing this, most e-learning designers realize that specific questioning must be inserted into the learning modules . One of the challenges in designing activities for online learning, is that most learning workstations provide such a limited range of possible activities for the learner . Without specialized (and often expensive) auxiliary input devices, an application can really only tell if the user has pointed at something, moved it on the screen, or typed some letters on the keyboard . These activities on their own have very little relation to actual behaviors in the target performance

Outcome

A final and slightly unexpected way to add a compelling challenge is simply to have the learner work toward an outcome that has some meaning and offers some sense of completion when accomplished . Learners rarely abandon a process in midstream if they are involved in completing a challenge in which they are engrossed . The Corning Substance Abuse module of a larger Supervisor Effectiveness curriculum involves negligible risk, yet creates a challenge that never fails to capture at-tention . It’s a simple challenge: Someone on your team is inappropriately using alcohol at work; figure out who it is (Figure 10.C) . Learners will not abandon the activity until the outcome (identifying the likely guilty party) is achieved, even though no other scoring or reward structure is in place .

We’ve talked about the importance of context, but the real value of establishing a context is to build the environ-ment in which a meaningful challenge will seem natural and motivating to the learner . Intelligent manipulation of consequence, difficulty, risk, and the outcome of

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times, the learner identifies each section to read about through the stars placed on the context-setting image of the car lot . This breaks the unnecessary linearity of the traditional page-turner, disrupts the monotonous reflexive action of clicking the same button repeatedly, and provides user control of sequence and review .

Of course, most activity should be focused on demonstrating mastery rather than on navigation, but it is important to be mindful of exactly what the learner is to master when devising activities . People tend to remember what they do more than what they read or hear — so it is important to have learners do those things that are most important . Most traditional activities direct the learner to remember content, when the focus should really be on using the information to perform successfully .

Practice Makes Perfect

The most basic approach is the make the learner perform the same activity, or a close simulation of the activity in the learning module . For example, a major car manufacturer wanted to use e-learning to teach technicians how to diagnose faults in automotive electrical systems . This is done in the real world using a digital volt-ohm meter and placing the probes . The learning module shown below (Figure 11.B) provided for the learner to perform precisely that activity — dragging probes and placing them in meaningful test locations . The greater the fidelity of the learning activity is to the performance environment, the greater the likelihood of lasting transfer to on-the-job performance .

of most training programs . (Probably the most common testing activity in e-learning is the standard multiple choice question in which the learner presses on the keyboard or clicks on the screen buttons labeled “a,” “b,” “c,” and “d.” Virtually nowhere in life is this useful behavior — except in other e-learning programs.) There’s very little to be done about these technical constraints, but it does mean that we need to be particularly dedicated to a smart design approach that creates value around these potentially meaningless core actions .

There will always be portions of training where the primary focus is simply the delivery of information to the learner . Traditionally, these are the highly-criticized page turning applications where the activity is chiefly limited to clicking the “Next” button . This is particularly problematic because it is tempting for the learner to mindlessly click to advance without reading anything . In desperation, designers add narration, hoping that the voice will be more compelling, and then even disable the navigation functionality until the narrative is complete . This rarely accomplishes the goal of gaining the learner’s attention . Instead, it encourages the learners to check out until the “noise” stops before clicking “Next .” In fact, it actually makes it more convenient to be multi-tasking, reading email or surfing the Web, while waiting for the e-learning to proceed on its way, unheeded .

A simple strategy that can add significance to these situations is simply to incorporate the navigation functionality into the information being presented, rather than keeping it completely unrelated in some sort of arbitrary navigation shell . This technique is apparent in the car loan learning module shown below (Figure 11.A) . The learner is to read about seven components of the car dealership . Instead of clicking “Next” seven

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is looking at an actual representation of a check to be evaluated in terms of negotiability and must select the element that is missing . There are no artificial cues to pre-digest the content; the learner must pick out the six requirements from the myriad other features of a check (in this case, the cursor doesn’t even change to a hand cursor to provide unrelated hints as to possible answers) . The real behavior that the lesson is to teach is for the teller to visually investigate every check that passes across the desk (including physically turning each check over) . The lesson activity is to point to the part of the check that is missing for negotiability . Does the teller on-the-job actually have to point to the check components? Of course not . We really just want the teller to look carefully at each check . But the beauty of this meaningful pointing is that the learner can’t do it without looking at the checks . So we take the measurable but otherwise arbitrary action of “pointing” to indicate the more vital behavior of “looking” that we’re interested in . When the learners succeed at this activity, we know that they have done exactly what we want them to do on the job — visually inspect every check for the requirements of negotiability .

Drag-and-Drop Interactivity

Designers often think that simply creating actions of greater complexity, the learning will be improved . Actually, the reverse is often the case . Drag-and-drop interactivity is frequently hailed as a “better” or “advanced” action around which to build a question . True, drag-and-drop does require more senses and a higher level of attention, but that challenge can backfire if misused . For example, the screen below (Figure 12.C) illustrates a common matching exercise . The user must drag letters from the right to the empty boxes on the

Two e-Learning Approaches Compared

Of course it is not always possible to create such a faithful representation of the target performance behaviors . A core concept in bank teller performance is ensuring the negotiability of monetary instruments presented in exchange for cash . A typical e-learning activity associated with this content would be to ask the learner in some way to validate a listing of the six requirements . One approach is shown below (Figure 12.A) .

The activity, clicking check boxes, has nothing to do with ultimate successful performance . The question format, itself, by cuing the desired target items, ignores the fact that the learner could be nursing a large number of “alternative” misconceptions that are not even addressed . Further, the only item in the list not to be checked (the second option) is really more of a “trick” question to trip up the student for carelessness rather than actually helping the learner internalize this content .

Compare this approach with the activity illustrated in the alternative approach below (Figure 12.B) . Here the learner

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the preferred first strategy . Finally, more complex actions make it reasonable to delay judgment, thereby giving the learner a chance to think about his or her answers, and self-correct when needed . The example below (Figure 13.B) illustrates this principle . The content is a content

quiz in a culinary techniques lesson about identifying the components in the types of flour encountered in a typical question . The interaction manufactures a whimsical flour mill mechanism where the learner manipulates concrete controls to select the contents of each bag of flour . This makes the choices of the learner far more intentional and memorable than would be possible with a purely verbal format that tested this same content .

Too many instructional designs rely on a relatively small set of arbitrary activities as the core of their instruction without realizing how critical the specific activities the learner will perform are to the ultimate outcomes of a training piece . Creating activities that focus the learner on the content, mirror the real world, require the learner to engage in the expected outcomes, add a level of physical challenge matching the anticipated outcome, and require a level of thoughtful effort, will greatly enhance the engagement and long-term effectiveness of e-learning modules .

Feedback

OK, we’ve got the learner actively involved in a context-rich challenge . This is just the right place to communicate effectively with the learner through FEEDBACK . Feedback is the wide range of messages and information given back to the learner in response to some user action .

left . While matching activities can be a useful method of testing knowledge, this format actually creates an unnecessarily difficult challenge . Placing the letter in the relatively small target box requires such mental and motor control that the actual content is almost immediately forgotten .

This is not to say that drag-and-drop functionality can’t be really effective . In the example below (Figure 13.A), the learner is to identify security breaches in a workplace setting by dragging the magnifying glass to the offending images . Again, the visual-spatial nature of the task reinforces the visual focus desired in the ultimate performance behavior, but it also creates an immersion in the context and the challenge that is very engaging . Put more simply, it makes the action fun while still maintaining appropriate attention to the core lesson objectives .

Value in Creating Effort Around User Response

Finally there is value in creating effort around a user response . One of the weaknesses of many traditional e-learning activities is that they are simply too easy . There is virtually no physical effort required in producing the responses for multiple choice questions and so it is easy to understand how so many users exert no corresponding mental effort in choosing a response . An interaction that requires user effort accomplishes several important goals . First, it simply slows things down a bit . In most training situations (except those involving pure rote memoriza-tion) we want the learner to pause and engage in critical thinking, something that doesn’t happen when the learner is simply clicking buttons at whim . Second, an interaction that requires effort usually creates a much larger set of possible responses for the learner, which in turn makes it much less attractive for the learner to use guessing as

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to determine the relative importance of new content . Often they do not pay much attention to what they read until the questions that highlight what the designer thinks is important are encountered (and then they de-cide whether it is worth going back and actually reading or if they are just as likely to be successful by guessing!)

Learner-centered design puts challenges in front of the learner as an initial step in teaching . Then, based on how the student performs, the instructional content is provided to each learner through feedback based on demonstrated need . This tends to make the instruction more relevant, motivating, and quicker .

In the Corning Inc . Employee Security course (Figures 14.A and 14.B), the learner is asked to evaluate a situation regarding what constitutes a “troubling situation .” The learner encounters the “definition” of a troubling situation in the feedback, only after having reasoned through what is the most pressing security threat in the scenario .

Using Intrinsic Feedback

Intrinsic feedback is status information given back to the user that is naturally part of the task, or intrinsic to the learning activity . The contrast to intrinsic feedback is extrinsic feedback — feedback that is applied to judging or correcting the user without any particular specific connection to the task at hand . A classic example of extrinsic feedback is the statement, “Incorrect . Try again .” It judges the response but is not connected in any specific way to the action or thinking the learner is engaged in . It is completely extrinsic to the question .

Intrinsic feedback is integrated seamlessly into the task itself . A simple example of intrinsic feedback can be

Judgment vs. Feedback

Before exploring the way in which feedback can teach, it is important to be clear about the distinction between judg-ment and feedback . Judgment is an evaluative assessment of the correctness of a user’s response — whether it was correct or incorrect . Judgment usually signals some scoring and reporting . Feedback includes judgment, but also includes any other messages, text, or media that provides useful information back to the learner . Most e-learning tends to focus more on judgment than on feedback .

Feedback as a Tool for Content Presentation

One of the biggest traps e-learning designers fall into is the idea that their job is mainly to deliver content . The re-sults of this design focus are the tedious, content-heavy page turners that no one wants but that everyone ends up with anyway . This content-centered design approach focuses almost entirely on the way to divide up content, with interactions tacked on as accessories . Instead, the best e-learning is created with a learner-centered focus, in which primary attention is given to creating the learn-ing experience — letting the content flow through the activity and its consequences . In other words, get the learner into a task quickly, and then provide content instruction through the feedback .

Content-centered design is problematic for several reasons . The first is that all learners do not actually need the same level of content delivery . Front-loading all content to be read by all users, regardless of individual differences, will always waste time for some portion of the audience . Second, learners usually have little ability

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successfully without the coach feedback . In other words, the learner must perform using only intrinsic feedback elements . Since the intrinsic elements are also exactly the same sources of feedback the learner will encounter in the real world, this increases the likelihood that the new be-haviors will transfer to actual performance environments .

Delaying Judgment

A commonly-held design principle among many instructional designers is that immediate judgment and feedback is a great benefit of e-learning . A more useful position would be that e-learning allows appropriate delay of feedback . When the subject matter is simple fact learning that primarily involves memorization, it is probably correct to give immediate judgment . There is little instructional benefit to be gained by allowing the learner to hold false information once that problem is iden-tified . However, once learning objectives start requiring conceptual, procedural, or problem solving learning, much can be gained by actually delaying judgment .

With multi-step, higher order skills, immediate judgment after every step can trivialize what could otherwise be an interesting challenge . This can be seen clearly in many e-learning programs built to teach software applications . A common model is to give the description of what the next step is and then show a big arrow pointing to the target spot with the instruction “Click here now .” The user clicks there and is judged (“Great job!”) and continues on to the next step . This effectively has changed the task from trying to manipulate the software to making sure the learner can click on arrows . The immediate judgment

found in the Do the Dip exercise in Cooking with Flair,developed for the National Food Service Management Institute (Figure 15.A) . The task is to create a nutritious and attractive fruit plate . If the learner drags a fruit without first dipping it in lemon juice, it may turn brown . In the interaction, the primary feedback is that the fruit actually does discolor — intrinsic feedback . Intrinsic feedback tends to be visual, context rich, and quick .

Of course, there is also extrinsic feedback in the presence of the text that is displayed after each response . The extrinsic feedback is important to provide early in the sequence; but as experience grows, learners may tend to skip extrinsic elements while they continue to attend to the intrinsic elements .

The Sales Training course created for Manpower com-bines intrinsic and extrinsic feedback in a wonderful way (Figures 15.B and 15.C) . Learners engage in a simulated conversation and then get intrinsic feedback through responses and body language from the client . Extrinsic feedback in this e-learning course comes from a coach . To ultimately get full credit, learners must perform

With intrinsic and extrinsic feedback Intrinsic feedback only

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judgmental feedback . Unfortunately, very few performance situations involve any of those characteristics . By building e-learning with those traits, we encourage learners to depend on artifacts of the learning that have no real coun-terpart in the real world .

If the learner is performing tasks in a meaningful context, then it is relatively straightforward to provide feedback embedded directly in that same context, usually in the same way that proficient users get feedback from their performance surroundings to monitor their performance . In the sales example depicted on the previous page (Figure 15.C) the learner does not have arbitrary statements judging the correctness of their choices . Instead, the learner monitors user responses, emotional responses, and body language to assess successful sales strategies . These are exactly the same consequences that an experienced expert salesperson uses on a daily basis .

Bringing it All Together

Feedback completes the circle of design components necessary to create instructional interactivity . FEEDBACK is the best opportunity for communicating content to the user — after the user has been placed in a meaningful CONTEXT, presented with a relevant CHALLENGE, and performed an ACTIVITY intended to meet that challenge . Ideally, feedback contributes further to the meaningful-ness of the context, providing even more incentive for the learner to be immersed in the instructional challenge pre-sented . This cycle of engaging instructional interactivity is truly the unique role that e-learning can provide in mak-ing a difference for both the learner and to the success of the overall organization .

has created a series of trivial, meaningless tasks out of the extended procedure that is intended to be taught .

A better approach is to give the learner the necessary information through instructions or demonstration animations of an entire step or process, and then let the learner try it, chaining together the steps, but with-holding the judgment until a significant milestone has been reached . This puts the responsibility on the learner to self-assess his or her success before the lesson itself stops all critical thinking by an immediate judgment .

It is important to note that this does not apply to all feed-back . Even when final judgment is delayed, immediate feedback through simulated actions and intermediate content rich messages is necessary for the learner to ben-efit from delaying judgment . Delaying judgment without also providing other immediate feedback and cues to assist the learner in continuing to perform would be plain mean . But the interval between when the learner starts performing and when the interaction is brought to a close through judgment, is a critical time of immense mental activity . When judgment is presented immediately, the opportunity for that active mental engagement is lost .

Presenting Consequences

A major goal of most training and e-learning is that the performance change created in the learning environment transfers to the performance environment . This is possible when the most salient aspects of the performance environment are also part of the learning environment . It is relatively easy to achieve success in e-learning by following simplistic, extrinsic, immediate

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Ethan Edwards draws on more than 25 years of industry experience as an e-learning instructional designer and developer. He is responsible for the delivery of the internal and external training and communications that reflect Allen Interactions’ unique perspective on designing and developing meaningful and memorable e-learning programs. Edwards is the primary instructor for ASTD’s e-Learning Instructional Design Certificate Program. In addition, he is an internationally recognized speaker on instructional design and e-learning.

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