Tata Interactive Systems

What do I want as a learner?

I prefer a learning environment that provides me opportunties to:

• Assimilate content at my will.
• Listen to an expert on the topic.
• Watch an expert deal with the task in question (if the learning is problem-solving/task-oriented).
• Interact with an expert.
• Listen to anecdotes, stories, real experiences, and points of view related to the topic.
• Practice the task in a simulated environment (if the learning is problem-solving/task oriented).
• Practice the task in a real environment (if the learning is problem-solving/task oriented).
• Interact with others interested in or pursuing similar topics.
• Reflect on and analyze new learning in relation to existing and evolving knowledge constructs.
• Articulate my own interpretation and position on the topic.
• Continue building on the learning, both formally (research) and informally (reading in a non-linear manner, exchanging ideas, listening to others, etc.).

What do you want as a learner?

(Anil Mammen is a Senior Instructional Design Consultant at Tata Interactive Systems.)

Making the Learner Relevant to the Learning

Whenever we begin designing a learning solution, we get into a detailed analysis of the content (Merrill and Component Display Theory come in handy here, among other tools), define the instructional objectives (Bloom takes care of this for the most part), decide the instructional strategy (take your pick on this - scenario-based learning, problem-based learning, story-based learning, blended learning, micro learning objects, threaded discussions, to name but a few), and get into the creation of the learning product. Not for a moment am I arguing that these steps are not necessary. But the area I reckon a little more rigor would help is that of understanding the learner.

While we do get at some level of target audience definition, either the definition is a little too general and broad (spread across the world, wide disparity in age, gender balance, diverse races, comfortable with computers, ambitious...) or we end up considering holistic personality definition tools (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument, Multiple Intelligences Theory...). May be we need to hit a little closer to home as well.

Can we define the learner's personality vis-a-vis the learning content? Can we attempt a learner definition vis-a-vis the learning objectives? Can we analyze the learner's motivational congruence with the program goals? Can we define the learner's raison d'etre to learn this content? Can we put all these together and define the instructional challenge for the program? And then use that as the trigger to define the instructional design of the program?

As I say this, my mind goes back to the world of consumer marketing and advertising. If you were to launch a new brand of soap, you would try to understand the consumer as a holistic individual, as a consumer of soap, and as a consumer of the brand proposition you want to put forth for your offering, wouldn't you? This composite understanding is what you would use to define the product and the corresponding marketing plan, isn't it? Inasmuch as advertising aims to educate the customer (albeit in a limited self-serving sense), training will do well to advertise itself to the learner. After all, we want the learner to be a willing participant in the learning process. S/he needs to be part of the team that defines the learning. And if that happens, the training program ends up being an advertisement for itself. And nothing can better than that to promote learning effectiveness.

Thoughts, comments?

(Geetha Krishnan heads Instructional Design at Tata Interactive Systems)