FAQ

The pursuit of Instructional design is to improve modern employees' processes and procedures in a way that is intuitive and “sticky”. As you can imagine, a process map alone isn't exactly sticky. A written book of explanations won't help employees that need visual aids. Many processes involve using several skills at the same time. Teaching these skill combinations can be a challenge the more complicated a job is. Employees are best taught when we use real examples of work. Mentors and managers are the basis for employee improvement, Instructional design aims to support 1-on-1s and career pathing.

There are libraries of premade content for business. So why go the custom route?

Canned courses may not fit with every company's process or brand. Plus, not all people learn the same way. Treavy training has made courses for a wide variety of employees including engineers, sales, accountants, and customer service agents. Each group has a specific outlook on their job and expectations. We need to consider these outlooks when making content. The audience drives how we create instructional content.

Here's a good training tip: Use canned content to supplement custom content when appropriate.

Androgodgy (an·druh·gow·jee) is the study of how Adults learn. Rather than pedagogy (the study of how children learn) adults draw on past experiences and story examples to create new neural pathways. This means that adults get motivated to learn when they understand why they need this new information. A common approach to teaching adults is to first explain how each concept could have been helpful in the past.

Stories give learners an example of what to expect. There's a reason why 80% of sales training is practice examples and customer scenarios. These examples are best when they reflect real-world situations. Many companies only use good examples for employee training when bad examples are even more useful. The point of story-based training is to prepare the employee to encounter a similar situation and teach them what to expect. When we walk through processes with memorable story examples, we can create training that has an impact on employee behavior.

Instructional design isn't just about writing stories and quizzes. Videos, Infographics, articles, reminder emails, and just-in-time FAQs are all part of learning. To create these various methods of teaching, Instructional designers need to be masters of various tech. Software like Adobe illustrator, premiere pro, captivate Google slides, Microsoft PowerPoint, Camtasia, Articulate 360, and a healthy dose of HTML coding. Hardware such as lights, cameras, and microphones are also an important part of the process.

Have you ever had a song stuck in your head? We can get the same effect with important information!

With popular training methods involving gamification, short videos, and story examples. It's always best to add a little fun to make the content “sticky”. Our minds pay attention to entertaining content. When we add relevant graphics and sounds we can make the content as catchy as the latest pop hit. No one wants to sit through three hours of quizzes and informational videos. Treavy training uses games, jokes, and jingles to break up the time into manageable chunks.

Here we meet with the sponsor and available SMEs (subject matter experts) to nail down the desired behavior change and what needs to change to achieve it. We create a project plan and set important milestones. Learning project managers are the gantt chart gurus in planning the backend of all content.

The analysis stage is about charting a course for a course of course.

Design starts with SME interviews to create an outline of the desired training. This outline can provide insight into what type of content would be most effective. Design meetings capture tribal knowledge and define each step of the process. Design meetings can be one-on-one or with a group to compare viewpoints.

We categorize Learning projects by levels (1, 2, and 3) depending on the amount of information and design processing.

Level 1 content is about publishing content with little processing. Many projects start at level 1 to make sure the information is available, with a plan to convert the content to level 2 or 3 in the future.

Level 2 courses include story-based training but may not have all the bells and whistles of level 3.

Level 3 courses are usually saved for highly impactful content, or the most widely shared. Some of the assets include videos, drag-and-drop quizzes, and interactive navigation. Note that all customer-facing content is usually level 3.

In development, we work hard to create quality content. This is where our technical writers, video editors, and coders get to shine. We also schedule a series of reviews for the SMEs and sponsors. We conduct content reviews via email with written feedback or scheduled as a sit-down meeting to review in real time. Written training content may have one review, while video content would need two reviews, one for the script, and one for the developed video. These reviews allow us to pivot on any changing information or design updates.

Implementation is about tracking, and LMSs (learning management systems). This is often one of the quickest steps, yet is vital to collect enough data to prove the course is a success. There are many LMSs but they all have the same three ingredients. User data, course data, and custom learning paths. For example, we could make a course for sales personnel, but also install the course in operations and customer support learning plans. Each course will have tracking data to show who has completed the course and their quiz scores. Each user will have their scores tracked so their manager can discuss any needed changes in a 1-on-1. We organize all content into paths that build off each other, without skipping important pieces of information.

Now that we have user and course data, we can see learners with high quiz scores know their stuff. Low scores identify employees who may have rushed through the content, but a quiz can always be retaken. Managers can use this information in 1-on-1s or in team meetings. We comb through the data to track successful content and consider implementing refresher content if needed.

Some courses require simple acknowledgment while others have interactive pathing. We can compare all the previous data to show improvement. A successful evaluation stage ends with a celebration!