Adaptive learning is a method of learning experience design which leverages technology and algorithms to deliver learning tailored to the individual’s unique needs. Some conditions are required to create such an experience:
Delivery technology: a learning management system (LMS) which tracks learner progress through the content
Modularised content: decomposed to “granular” learning objectives with matching assessments, enabling pinpointing of gaps in comprehension. A common example is pre-test to understand where to initially place the learner in the course.
Algorithms: predict which “probes” or problems the learner may be able to answer correctly and which are the next level of difficulty, guiding the learner to the next content. For example, vendors such as McGraw-Hill include attributes such as: response time, learner confidence in the answer, and accuracy in the calculations.
Adaptive learning includes some concepts of cognitive psychology:
Deliberate practice: intentional focus on concepts the learner needs development in at the next level of skill
Ebbinghaus “Forgetting Curve”: a theory of repetition, how concepts are encoded from short-term to long-term memory, and when is the best moment to influence this encoding
Metacognition: the learner reflects on his or her own confidence in the concepts
Gamification: introduction of fun and competition to stimulate engagement.
Potential impact on teaching and learning:
The benefits in an adult learning context:
Learners don’t waste time covering concepts they are already familiar with, which is more engaging for the learner and more efficient from a business perspective.
Learners get constant reinforcement and encouragement, building confidence.
Suitable for situations like “pre-boarding” in universities, where the instructor would like to ensure all students are at the same skill level before proceeding with the course content.
The potential drawbacks:
This subject reminds me of Skinner’s learning machines in the 1930’s and 40’s. Technology will never be a 100% substitute for a great teacher who facilitates a group of humans to interact with each other. A good helper to the instructor, yes. It’s important to remember that!
Adaptive learning as presented here requires significant programming: of the learning objectives, “probes,” assessments, algorithms to make this approach work ideally.
The effort and investment required means it would work well for subjects in which the content is not changing constantly, such as subjects taught in K-12 or theoretical introductory courses. In a corporate scenario, I would imagine only compliance training or say, introductory leadership and management courses would justify such an investment.
Most organisations I have worked with say they want this type of approach, but when it comes down to committing resources, learning is not prioritised for investment.
A screenshot of my Degreed digital transcript, which if you are a Degreed user, you can see here. Degreed is one of the platforms I would include in my learning about portable lifelong transcripts.
The presentation video is just a few seconds over eight minutes! I discuss more background about why I’m passionate about this subject, how I would organise the learning, illustrate the concept of functional requirements, and finally how we can measure whether learning has occurred.
My signature assignment is on portable “lifelong” learning transcripts. These digital tools allow professionals to showcase their lifelong learning, both formal and informal, as they go through their careers.
Imagine you are employed at Company A for several years. Over that time you have been fortunate to get quite a bit of training, but your learning history is locked in their Learning Management System. Wouldn’t it be nice to keep track of all of that somewhere else, so when you go looking for a new role, you can tell Prospective Employer Company B what you have learned. Maybe at the same time you have been studying at night for an additional credential. The portable transcript allows you to keep it all in one place.
For this week’s assignment, we were required to write high-quality goals and learning objectives for two given scenarios. I used techniques described in the readings from Shabatura (2018) and Smith (2012) to inform my assignment.
Inspired by Smith’s (2012) technique, I first thought about the “noun” of what I wanted to learners to acquire without getting stuck on selecting an action verb. Once this was done, I added an action verb. Finally I thought about how I could assess that learning had taken place, or what was the deliverable of the objective and built that into the objective whenever possible. As Shabatura (2018) recommends, I have included a number indicating the action verb’s Bloom’s Taxonomy Level and done my best to ensure the learning objectives are not at a higher level than the overall Goal for the learning
Scenario #1:
For the past ten years, KawKan has been using a lean manufacturing approach in the assembly of their motorcycles. Over that decade, business has remained strong, but operational costs have continued to increase despite increased sales every year. Management has considered the idea it might be time to switch from the Lean process to a more robust continuous improvement model. Since the company is immersed in the practice of Lean manufacturing model, the management team is not familiar with the basic elements in the continuous improvement model. Management has asked you to prepare a presentation outlining the continuous improvement process and how implementing how it can improve the overall manufacturing output. The designated contacts for this project include the director of supply chain management and the director of continuous improvement for production.
Your role: Assume the role of an instructional designer developing an outline for a training resolution. How would you address the following to correctly identify the learning objectives for this project:
NOTE: I see this entire activity as more than a “presentation.” It would have to take the form of a change management workshop, potentially with some time allocated in the beginning for prework, and several activities designed to get participants to be honest with each other about what’s not working and moving toward the conviction that change is needed.
Goal description (Bloom’s taxonomy level in parentheses)
In an atmosphere of trust, the management team determines (5) the potential impact of migrating to a continuous improvement manufacturing model. The team can evaluate (5) potential benefits and risks, visualise the future, and list required next steps.
Learning objectives/outcomes
(1) List the factors which have led to increasing operational costs over the last five years.
(2) Discuss what it means for you as a professional when sales are rising but so are costs. (The “background” objective is to elicit any frustration at this situation—setting a good climate to consider whether change is necessary.)
(5) Predict what direction operational costs will take over the next five years if the ways of working do not change.
(2) Describe the fundamentals of the continuous improvement process.
(2) Contrast the benefits and drawbacks of the continuous improvement process versus the lean manufacturing model.
(2) Visualise how a typical day, month, and year would be like once we were fully working with the continuous improvement process.
(5) Evaluate whether this visualisation is realistic and the direction we want/need to go.
(6) Assuming we want to proceed, outline the parameters (initial design) of a pilot project to help us make data-driven decisions.
(1) Enumerate what resources we need to kick off a pilot project.
Potential Subject Matter Experts/Define their role in the project:
The supply chain director and continuous improvement director are potentially powerful change champions for this initiative. They need to be supportive for it to progress so giving them pieces of the agenda to facilitate makes their leadership visible.
Actions steps to address with a SME:
I would use the SMEs as the primary facilitators for steps in the agenda, especially in the section on the fundamentals of the continuous improvement process and contrasting it with how they work today. For example, the supply chain director could kick off the agenda and lead some exercises outlining the need for change. Then, I would have the continuous improvement director hand out one or two good summary articles on the fundamentals for everyone to sit together and read for 30 minutes. Then, s/he would facilitate a discussion on reflections, and summarise with his/her own summary. This person would then lead a discussion comparing continuous improvement with lean manufacturing. I assume that this person is comfortable facilitating—perhaps some assistance would be needed.
Scenario #2:
MedPat is a moderate-sized medical device manufacturer with offices, distribution centres, and production facilities scattered across North and South America. The company’s growth has primarily been done through the acquisition of smaller and competing business in the same market. Given the degree of displaced locations, different operating procedures, and non-integrated systems, the operations have become too strenuous. One of the larger sites has been chosen as a test site to harmonise the setup and production of the company’s new devices. Soon, other sites will be manufacturing this same device too. MedPat needs to remove itself from a paper-based operation because it slows down production, the records are hard to consistently manage, and it leads to communication issues with the site and field reps. The designated contacts for this initiative consist of a process improvement expert and the vice president of production.
Your role: Assume the role of an instructional designer developing an outline for a training resolution. How would you address the following to correctly identify the learning objectives for this project:
Goal description
Affected stakeholders are prepared to execute the new processes and systems included in the harmonisation project. This includes predicting and anticipating (5) change impacts on the organisation and actively preparing a plan of mitigating actions.
Learning objectives/outcomes
(2) Describe in business and human terms, why MedPat must harmonise ways of working across the entire business.
(2) Summarise what specific metrics will define whether this effort is successful.
(1) Reproduce the new processes and systems using paper-based tools.
(3) Successfully simulate the new processes and systems given a realistic scenario, materials, and sample data.
(1) Name the actor involved in executing each step in these new processes, as well as timelines.
(4) Analyse the change impacts in terms of people, process, technology, culture.
(5) Recommend the preparations and responsible for each, which your team needs to take to be ready for these changes.
(6) Develop a change readiness action and time plan for your team, to which will all physically sign as a statement of commitment.
Potential Subject Matter Experts/Define their role in the project:
The process improvement expert will be documenting the new processes and ensuring any supporting systems are ready for roll-out. The VP of production must be the visible driver of the initiative and display buy-in to the training approach.
Actions steps you would address with a SME.
The process improvement expert will assist in developing training material according to a defined template, potentially delivering some portions of it and acting as an assistant trainer in the practical sessions.
The VP of Production should deliver an inspirational speech to the learners about why we are undertaking this initiative. If possible, it should include a human-factor story about how the way they are working is negatively affecting a real customer or other stakeholder. S/he should explicitly state s/he is the programme sponsor and supports the training approach.
This week’s assignment was to compare our ADDIE mindmap and task list to what is possible with Rapid E-Learning, being clear that the steps in ADDIE still need to be done, but in an abbreviated way.
My reflection is that we want to make Rapid E-Learning as repeatable a process as possible, so we need to develop “Standard Operating Procedures” to how we work with it. To do this, we can get the client to make decisions up-front about the scope, including challenging whether learning is really what is needed or rather an adjustment to the business process, technology, policy, etc. Then if you can template absolutely everything, starting from the request form, to the learning templates, to the follow-up evaluation checklist, Rapid E-Learning can have a higher chance of combining quality, speed, and cost.
Please see here for my ideas on how to adapt ADDIE for a more rapid approach.
This method is simpler and closer to what I usually have implemented when I design a single learning course as opposed to a larger-scale curriculum. It starts with exploring the rationale for the educational intervention in the first place– the “bigger picture.” Usually in corporate training we are urged to think about the “what’s in it for me” if the learner understands this.
In my submission I used a situation I believe I likely will need to design for– learning a new Computer Telephony Integration (CTI) system as the final piece in the puzzle before beginning to handle calls with customers. When I was discussing the requirements for this training with a colleague, he said, “well, it’s not really rocket science, just log them onto the system and call in with your mobile phone!” When I really dug into it, I put myself in the shoes of the care centre agent– I definitely would want to practice using all aspects of all hardware and software (headsets, CTI system, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system) together before beginning to talk to real customers. As I thought about it there are several scenarios and skills one needs to practice to make this a high-quality use of time.
When I thought about appropriate “essential questions” for this type of training, I wondered how much patience students would have for this type of discussion. I suppose the underlying thought is to remind them that we treat customers as we would want to be treated. Part of this could be for example, knowing how to transfer a call to a colleague without making the customer explain themselves all over again. Who doesn’t hate that?
Who doesn’t love a nice mindmap to get the old brain synapses firing? Click on the image or on this link to see one for the Week 2 assignment:
The Mindmeister tool tries to make it convenient to collaborate on mindmaps digitally, but I have used some other tools I liked better, like Mural whiteboard. Another idea– who can really complain about just putting a good old Google doc together and sharing it with your team? Anyway, any day I learn something new is a good day, so I’ve chalked this up as a win!
My thoughts about the ADDIE model are that it’s been a good workhorse for us and it would work in a situation where there isn’t much VUCA going on…but I’ve not worked in an environment like that since I started working. A long-ass time ago.
I like this image– It represents the designer taking many resources, grinding them up in the computer and serving that delicious knowledge sausage up to the learners.
I realise I forgot to mention in my podcast, how well this model would work for my needs and my take is– it works better than ADDIE for a VUCA (Volatile, Uncertain, Chaotic, Ambiguous) work environment. It is more compact, yet it includes the important step of designing business-impactful performance objectives and evaluating these.
Below is a transcript of the podcast, which is read by the lovely Hazel at Speed 9, from naturalvoices.com:
Hi, I’m Kristin the Swedish Nerd! Welcome to my podcast today talking about the Dick and Carey instructional design model. Exciting stuff, hey? I’m using a voice simulator to create this audio so some of my personality is lost. Sorry about that, I am paranoid about privacy.
So, getting back to the Dick and Carey model. I find these models difficult to grasp without a scenario, don’t you? So for today’s review of the model, I’d like you to consider the following challenge as a learning designer. Your learners are call center agents working for a company selling subscriptions to a product. Their incoming calls are often from consumers who aren’t yet customers. These prospective customers have questions about the contractual terms and conditions as well as insurance for the subscribed product. This is NOT, I repeat, NOT exciting stuff, yet these agents need to feel confident that they know the answers before they begin accepting incoming calls.
How do you train this concept? Let’s use the Dick and Carey model to think about it, shall we?
Step 1 is defining the instructional goal or desired state at the end of the instruction. Then you have to analyze to what degree the learners can already achieve the goal today. In our example, the desired state is that the learners can confidently answer incoming consumer questions, OR know where they can quickly find the answer for the question while they have the customer on the call. Most of the learners come into the job knowing absolutely nothing, so we are starting from zero!
Step 2 is analyzing what skills are required for achieving the goal. This could include knowledge of how to execute tasks and procedures, how to conceptualize information, or other skills. In our example, the learners need to come to the job with good verbal and written communication skills in the local language, as well as good interpersonal skills. Sometimes it takes a bit of patient back-and-forth to understand what the customer really wants to know. Also they need to know some background about the commercial offer, even if they don’t know all the specifics, as well as how to use our Customer Relationship Management System, or CRM, to log the call correctly and look up answers they might not know right away.
Step 3 is understanding what behaviors and learner characteristics do the learners bring to the course, and what would attract them to the course? I could see this step being really important in non-traditional adult learning scenarios. In our example, it’s a helpful step to remind us about the prerequisite training which needs to happen before this one. Everyone needs to have a baseline in written and verbal communication skills to take this course. However they don’t need to know how to use the CRM system at first, they just need to practice answering questions. We probably could take their learnings from this one and we can use great realistic scenarios for CRM system training. This would be a second-stage training incorporating the same concepts but including the aspect of how to “look up” the answer in the system when you aren’t sure.
Step 4 is translating the goals to specific performance objectives. These objectives should be structured as so: Conditions, desired Behavior, and Criteria. We should plan to evaluate the performance objectives in a realistic situation. What does this mean for our scenario? Maybe something like this: Given an incoming consumer call, correctly answer questions regarding the contractual terms and conditions and product insurance, using printed learning materials made available. Answers must be given within 1 minute , and the expectation is 95% correct answers.
Step 5 is diagnosing whether the learners already have the knowledge or skills they need to take the course. You can decide how you want to assess this– perhaps you give a pre-test, you interview them, or you observe them in a realistic scenario. In our scenario, we will assume we know the learners already completed the required communication prerequisites, so we know they are ready for the next bit of information.
Step 6 is when you get to the good stuff– how in the heck will you train this material, which in our scenario, is dry-as-dust? As this is really a memorization exercise, we need to provide iterative ways to help people remember, then to understand where to look up the information when in doubt. In our example, I find it very important that the learners actually sit and read the boring contractual conditions and insurance information, because this is what the customers will receive. How fun can we make it though? Let’s first challenge them to get active with their learning. As they read, they should come up with three questions they think consumers would ask. Then they try these questions out on each other– say we have them go through three rounds with different partners to test out their questions. Then the really fun part. We play a game show in teams, say Jeopardy? These learners can get really competitive. Then we practice some scenarios. One learner is the customer and the other is an agent. The customer calls in with questions and the agent is allowed to use the learning materials to answer if they get stuck. PHEW! What a plan! I wonder if the learners will have fun and learn something?
Step 7 in the Dick and Carey model (remember that’s what we’re supposed to be doing here, right?) is collecting or developing all the materials and content to support your training session. In our scenario we need to print out the boring documents, author the Jeopardy game in some form (I have a PowerPoint document) and create some scenario cards to use for the partner exercises.
Step 8 is including a formative evaluation. Try your design out on a pilot group of learners and make adjustments.
Step 9 is to execute your summative evaluation. I see this as two things actually, although the literature I’ve read doesn’t seem to mention this. First, the learners need to have a feeling for themselves that they learned something. In our scenario, the partner exercises seem to do that. The second consideration is that management also needs to have confidence that their investment in the learning is meeting business objectives. I would hope if we can say that everyone managed to complete the final scenarios according to the performance objectives, that would suffice.
After Step 9 of course I’m going to want to make some improvements! And as I mentioned, use these learnings as a basis for creating good scenarios as we train CRM system skills.
Well, that’s all we have time for today in this podcast on the Dick and Carey instructional design method. Actually we went over time, but I hope you enjoyed it anyway. Take it easy from the Swedish Nerd, or as we say, “ta det lungt!”
Hi all, please forgive the echo of the voiceover in this video. I tried three times to record it with Powerpoint and I couldn’t get rid of it. I tried disabling my microphone and some other settings, but if you have suggestions please let me know!
Hope you enjoy it despite the echo– I learned several new techniques whilst producing it.
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