Instructional Design Trends: How to Create Quality Training Content
Before you can create great e-learning training content, you have to know what makes it great. That’s where best practices come in handy.
There are thousands of articles and blog posts about creating effective instructional content, but it can be challenging to sift through all the noise and identify what actually matters.
When you boil it down, there are a handful of universal best practices that will improve your training design.
For this post, we’ll focus on how these principles relate specifically to creating high-quality e-learning content that effectively trains users.
This is not an exhaustive list of everything you need to know about designing e-learning training materials.
However, following these best practices will give you a solid foundation for future projects.
Define Your Learning Objectives
Your first step in creating effective e-learning training content is to define your learning objectives. The learning objectives define what you want the user to know after completing the online training.
In other words, they are the skills and knowledge that you want the user to be able to apply in their job.
The learning objectives will inform the content design process and help you select the best topics to include in the training.
You’ll also be able to measure whether the online training is effective based on whether the user has mastered the skills and knowledge outlined in the objectives.
Think Activities
It is important never to leave your learners passive. Learning happens through repetition and experience.
It's not just about the information you deliver, it's about the experiences you create around the content.
For example, you can't learn a language just by reading and listening. You have to speak it again and again.
So you have to create a series of activities, at each slide the learner has to click, move, answer, connect...
Focus first on User Needs Instead of Content
When you’re creating e-learning training content, focus on the needs of your user, not just the e-learning content you want to include.
The goal of the e-learning content is to enable the user to perform their job better after completing the online training.
The user’s current skill level and the gaps they need to fill are more important than your topic preferences.
The user’s skill level will determine the topics you include in the content and the order of those topics in the learning sequence.
It’s also important to consider the user’s needs outside of the online training and his expectation.
For example, if there are skills the user needs to perform their job that aren’t included in the training, you can use virtual coaching to address that.
In the end, a good online training design focuses on the user first and the content second. Focus also on webinars, discussions and one to one coaching.
Keep It Short
Keep the e-learning content short and practical. Online Training is a time-consuming activity, but studies have shown that long-form training has limited effectiveness.
The recommended maximum length of an individual online training module is 20 minutes but 5 minutes best.
Higher-length modules can cause stress and lower engagement, which can negatively impact retention rates.
Short-form training doesn’t have the same drawbacks.
In fact, researchers have found that short-form online training produces better results than long-form training.
This means that you shouldn’t try to cram as much e-learning content into one module as possible.
Instead, keep the online modules short, but don’t skimp on topics. Keep in mind that engagement is just as important as length.
Use Scenario-Based Learning
A scenario-based learning approach can be extremely effective in online training. It allows you to bring the user into a realistic situation and then walk them through the decision-making process.
Scenarios are a great tool for learning because they’re more engaging and applicable than learning concepts or theory.
They also help you communicate the learning objectives more effectively. The scenario-based approach will vary depending on your content, but there are a few key steps.
First, you need to identify the key problem or decision the user will make during the scenario. Then, you’ll need to create the characters and setting that correspond to the problem you’ve outlined.
Finally, you’ll walk the user through the decision-making process until they reach an outcome.
Adopt Video-based Learning
Video is a powerful medium for conveying information. It has the ability to reach a larger audience than other types of training materials and inspire a sense of urgency or importance.
Video-based training has a few different formats, including screencast, talking head, and animation. The most common and effective format is the talking head video format.
In this format, a presenter narrates the content and the e-learning video shows their face as they speak.
For effective video-based training, ensure that the presenter is engaging and that the video is high in quality. Poor video quality can negatively impact retention rates.
Integrate Social-Learning
Social-learning is the process of incorporating collaboration and feedback into the online training design.
It’s a common practice in the e-learning industry and can be used to supplement other types of learning. You can employ social-learning techniques in video-based training, scenario-based learning, and interactive content.
Your social-learning strategy should consider two factors:
How the participants will interact
And what they’ll be grading each other on.
For example, you can set up a discussion forum where participants can comment on each other’s ideas and feedback. Or you can create a peer review system where they’ll rate each other on certain criteria.
Make It Interactive
Interactive e-learning content engages the user and boosts engagement rates.
It helps users retain knowledge better and minimises disengagement during the training.
To create interactive content, you can include multiple-choice questions, short decision-making exercises, and click and drag items.
You can also use virtual simulations and interactive scenario-based learning. Whatever you decide to do, make sure that the interactivity supports your e-learning objectives.
Summing up
As you can see, there are a few universal best practices that will improve your online training design.
To create high-quality online training content, you need to define your learning objectives, focus on user needs, keep the content short and sweet, adopt video.based learning, and make it interactive.
You can also use social-learning and write at a ninth grade level. You should also keep in mind that online training is an investment that will pay off if you invest in it properly.
By following these best practices, you’ll produce training materials that effectively train your users.