“Now that you’re in the beginning phase, you need to untap.” When was the last time you tried explaining something you were familiar with to someone who was new to it? Maybe you were orienting a new team member, trying to summarize your favorite show, or teaching someone how to play a game. Lots of […]
Your supervisor stops by and says they’re super busy. They need you to take care of something they don’t have time to do. After showing you that “Everything you need is in this folder” they thank you for your help and walk off. You have no idea how to do the task you were just […]
Last time we looked at New Year’s Resolutions from an instructional design perspective. Then I realized that a supplementary how-to was in order. How do you make a personal progress tracker that’s specific but flexible? Here’s one idea. For the purpose of this example, let’s say you’ve decided to make this “your year” and you’re […]
We’re nearing “New Year’s Resolution” time again. That got me thinking about the pass/fail rate of this annual ritual. How many people stick to their resolutions? Let’s be honest, it’s not very many. Since motivation and behavior change are part of instructional design, I thought it would be fun to take a look at where […]
I had the good fortune to spend a semester in Italy during college. Since I didn’t speak any Italian, I signed up for the introductory language course. The professor would assign us an activity, without any explanation, then wait a few minutes and give us the answers. It seemed like a waste of time. Noticing […]
I attended my first conference, Learning 2016, in October. Now that I’ve had time to digest everything and read over my notes I want to share some of what I learned and experienced. In several cases the concepts themselves weren’t new to me, but what I did brought me a renewed or expanded understanding of […]
One of you car’s headlights is out. It’s supposed to be pretty easy to replace, so you buy a new one and decide to give it a try. Where do you go for instructions? I’m guessing you’d probably try one or more of the following: Go to YouTube, or a similar site, and watch a […]
Mind-numbing boredom and hair-tearing frustration happen. They’re facts of life. But the thought of learning something new shouldn’t put people on autopilot. If the learner comes out of an educational offering wishing for that chunk of their life back something probably needs to be improved. This can be just as true of workflows and day-to-day […]