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Helpful ideas. Squeaky value.
Helpful ideas. Squeaky value.
Flipping the usual course structure sounds counterintuitive. But when you start with an activity instead of content, learners arrive at the instruction already engaged and aware of what they don't know. The HAT model makes that shift practical.
You can build a course with well-organized content, clean navigation, and solid visuals, and still end up with something that doesn't stick. These three principles address why that happens.
I hear "make it more interactive" constantly. But no one ever defines what that means. Once you understand the three main ways a course can be interactive, you can make smarter decisions about where to invest your development time.
A common pattern in e-learning is to list what people need to know and then quiz them on it. That approach measures recall, not understanding. Four design changes can close that gap.
Real communication goes back and forth. Most e-learning doesn't. Here's how to build feedback and assessment into the course itself instead of leaving it all to a quiz at the end.
Real-world content can actually work against your course. Here's why flipping the scenario, even into something as odd as an alien abduction, keeps learners focused on the objective instead of the details they already know.
"We have to lock the course or people will just skip to the end." Sound familiar? Locking navigation is a common default in e-learning, but it solves the wrong problem. This post explains why, and what to do instead.
Stuck building another content-heavy compliance course? These 7 ideas show you how to add context, drama, and decision-making without a full redesign.
Most learners who skip to the quiz aren't lazy. The course just isn't relevant enough to hold them. These three approaches give you better options than locking the navigation.
Locked course navigation is one of the most common e-learning frustrations, and it usually comes from good intentions gone wrong. This post breaks down why courses get locked and offers three practical ways to give learners more control without sacrificing your objectives.
Reality TV competitions have more to teach you than you'd think. From taking criticism to giving better feedback, here are five lessons from shows like Top Chef and Project Runway that can make you a sharper e-learning designer.
You've probably worked with a subject matter expert who knew everything about a topic but couldn't explain it in a way a new learner could follow. That's not a knock on them. Teaching is a different skill from knowing, and most SMEs have never been trained to do it.
Working with subject matter experts is one of the most challenging parts of building e-learning. The goal isn't to capture everything they know. It's to help them surface what learners actually need.
I asked a group of people to describe their training experiences. The same words kept appearing: boring, irrelevant, and a waste of time. That response is uncomfortable, but it's also a roadmap.
Your client wants 20 slides. Your SME insists on 50. But the learner never looks at the slide counter. The real question isn't how many screens a course has. It's whether those screens help learners do something they couldn't before.
