Instructional Techniques for Building Effective Online Training

Three structured approaches that move learners from information to applied skill

A lot of online courses are still mostly linear. That’s fine for annual compliance content with no real performance objective attached. But if you want real behavior change, you need structure that supports practice, feedback, and application. Here are three techniques that do exactly that.

Tell, Show, Do

Tell, Show, Do is one of the most common instructional patterns in e-learning, and for good reason. It covers the essentials in a logical order.

• Tell gives learners the context they need. For new learners, that context matters. It helps them see where the learning fits before they’re asked to apply anything.

• Show lets learners see the correct process in action. Watching a demonstration answers questions before they come up. One thing to watch: focus on the positive action. Showing what not to do can sometimes become what learners walk away remembering.

• Do has the learners do what’s being taught to prove that they learned. The goal is to get them working with the skill, not just reading about it. Application can happen as part of the Do stage or as a follow-on step after initial practice.

My first manager put it simply: the instructor does the Tell and Show, and the learner does the Do and Apply.

Tell, Show, Do, Practice and Review

This version adds two more stages, and those additions matter. It’s a stronger model for building skill over time.

• Tell and Show work the same as in the first model.

• Do still gives learners their first hands-on experience. Often courses, have the do the task and then that’s that, the end of it.

• Practice takes the Do stage further. In a real work environment, learners may only encounter certain tasks occasionally. Training is your chance to give them more repetitions than they’d normally get. Let them practice on their own once you’ve given feedback in the Do stage.

• Review closes the loop. You can observe and give feedback to make sure they’re on track. Debrief with learners on what they did, what they learned, and whether they hit the objectives. Ask them how comfortable they feel. Find out what questions are still open. This stage also works well in a peer coaching structure, where mentors do more than just demonstrate.

Start with the learning activity

This approach flips the sequence. Instead of building context before the activity, you start with the activity itself.

The hands-on activity comes first. Learners work with the content before you’ve told them much about it. They play, test things out, and start forming their own questions. More experienced learners can move through faster. Newer learners slow down and notice their gaps.

After the activity, you provide advice and feedback. You can do this during the activity as a guided process, or wait until they’re finished and debrief what happened. Either way, it surfaces the gaps and gives you the opening to fill them.

Then you tell. Now that learners have worked through the content themselves, the additional context lands differently. They know what they struggled with, so they’re ready for the instruction. This approach takes more time to design well, and some clients prefer the more familiar Tell, Show, Do structure. But starting with the activity gets learners thinking and constructing their own understanding from the start.

Key takeaways

Any of these three frameworks can improve your course design. The common thread is practice. Whatever model you choose, make sure learners get a real chance to apply what you’ve taught them. That’s how you move past information-sharing toward training that changes behavior. Try the activity-first approach on your next course and see how learners respond.