16. November 2007 by kevinmhuff.

It’s time to design a training program if the needs assessment has been completed. Not until then.

Once the needs assessment is complete the output from the assessment is used to create learning objective.

Learning objectives define what we wish to accomplish, the content to be trained, and the ultimate outcomes of training. Listen in to the podcast as we cover Training Program Design in more detail.

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13. November 2007 by kevinmhuff.

When it comes right down to it, developing training materials is one of the most critical steps in a training program/project. We’ve all experienced mediocre training, but how many of us have had the privilege of experiencing incredible, memorable, nothing like it training? What scares me is many may not even know this exists. Why not be the trainer others talk about by bringing this type of dynamic experience to your courses?

How does one do this? It’s a combination of personality, delivery…and early in the process it is about developing great materials and that starts with an understanding of Learning Theory.

Are you well-versed on Teaching Styles, Learning Styles (think Kolb), Design approaches (Behavioral, Cognitive), Bloom’s Taxonomy, Learning Objectives? These are elements of Learning Theory and are necessary to understand and integrate with your training material. The podcast covers each of these in more depth.

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3. November 2007 by kevinmhuff.

When assessing the need of your training audience, you must do your research. And you must conduct that research using as many research techniques as possible. I will admit, in my own personal experience as a trainer, I have seen the results when the research is lacking or worse, non-existent.

I once was asked to provide system training on a system I knew very well, but the request was immediate with very short notice. An assumption was made by the requester that the system was the same for every user, but that was not the case at all. The training I provided ended up missing the mark completely. If I had been provided the time to survey the audience and conduct at least one interview I would have been able to adapt my training content and delivery to the needs of my audience.

As a trainer I find surveys and interviews, when combined, to be excellent research techniques. Once a survey has been created, it can be administered to a very large audience, especially if you distribute them online. The results can supply you with a large amount of useful data that can be referenced and applied very quickly during the training development process. I will also take survey responses, pull a sample of them, then conduct an interview of those same participants so I can get more insight into their survey response.

Speaking of interviews, those are my favorite and where I have the most fun. I feel this research technique provides the best interaction and often better results as a result (no pun intended).

Research requires thought, from choosing the correct research method to gathering and analyzing the data, but it’s very important you take the time to do it right!

Back to podcasts!

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