Content Analysis (Continued)

Team meeting: 2 hours
Working on the Content Analysis: 10 hours

In our team meeting last week, we discussed the best format of presenting the deliverables in the Project Plan. Then we went over the first draft of the curriculum map that I have already shared with the team. The desire of the team is to involve the learners in higher order thinking as they go through the unit and assessment. We proposed to have the assessment in a problem-solving format, representing a culmination of the skills learned in the unit and use the assessment items that I have created earlier as the practice questions that come after each section of the unit. We also reviewed the action verbs I used in the objectives to give a better representation of the skills we want our learners to acquire.
Individually, I continued working on the Content Analysis. It seems to be one of the most demanding components of the project documentation. The objectives must be well woven together in order for the content to flow smoothly. In addition, we want our learners to acquire leadership skills that we will not be able to completely test for in the final assessment. In other words, we are hoping for transfer but we cannot test it in the final assessment. The challenge for me was in trying to specify measurable objectives that are as close to transfer as possible. I refined the curriculum map and this was not done quickly. Other than serving as a space to specify the objectives, the curriculum map is also a visual component. So, between specifying the objective and working on the visual appeal, finalizing the curriculum map took a considerable amount of time. Having done that, I moved to the final assessment questions. Here, the challenge was in the desire to have the learner problem-solve but then again, we want a close-ended quick assessment for the convenience of the learners and the convenience of collecting and analyzing data from 4,000 store managers or so. So, what I finally decided on was to use one of the scenarios provided to us by our client. I broke it down into segments, each of which representing a leadership skill. For each segment, I developed three questions: One will have the learners discern the leadership skill used, one will have them rate their agreement with the approach used (attitude), and one will have them identify the key elements in the scenario that represent the component of the leadership skill. This was time consuming but once I had my strategy down, it was only a matter of repeating the same process with different scenario text. I also added few other general questions to summarize the leadership skills. All of that went into the task analysis table.
Reflections: Having had several discussions in class about rapid prototyping, about the value of assessment, and about the short shelf-life of elearning courses in the corporate world, my reflection on the development process is one of pain. My pain was added upon, when our client mentioned that adult learners want to get over the training quickly, and he specified 5 minutes. Maybe it is reality but it does not make it less painful. As instructional designers, we aspire for in-depth learning. We want retention and then transfer. We also aspire for immersing the learners in higher order thinking experiences where they dig and search to create their understanding of the content. How can an instructional designer reconcile rapid, quick and continuous turnover with in-depth, immersive, leading to transfer kind of learning? Maybe the answer lies in the creativity of the instructional designer, to think way outside the box to get the desired learning. This is what I will have to work on, especially if I get to work in a corporate environment.