Developing an elearning course is no cakewalk. The process is well-known to be intensive and time consuming. However, what’s more difficult is to ensure that after spending hundreds of hours developing a training curriculum, the end result is effective.
Thankfully, over the years of the elearning revolution, experts have devised definitive processes that are designed to tackle the various challenges that are unique to online training.
THe case of training content development is no different. There is a step by step process that instructional designers, elearning developers, and organisations can employ to improve their chances of developing an engaging and impactful training experience.
Let’s see what these steps are:
Needs Analysis
Before you decide how many videos you want in your course, before deciding the delivery method, even before you ask Google “what is the best elearning software”, you must understand:
– 1. Your organisation’s training needs: These can range from understanding the new skill sets your organisation requires to the business metrics you plan on improving with your training initiatives.
– 2. Your target audience: This one is a no brainer. Unless you understand your target audience well, including their preferred devices, learning methods, and existing skills, designing a training curriculum relevant to them will prove to be a tricky challenge.
A needs analysis will help you determine the kind of content you need and the kind of delivery method you will employ. It will help you determine the gaps you will be trying to address with your training.
Determine Learning Objectives
Once you have determined what you need to teach and to whom, it is time to condense that information into learning objectives.
For example, in the last step, you determined that you need better network specialists and will be training the most experienced members of your existing IT team.
Now, you must determine what they will know after they have taken the training and passed the assessments.
Once you have a set of clear learning objectives, you can proceed to the next steps.
Design, Develop, and Collate Training Content
Once you know
– The skill gaps you are trying to address to achieve specific business goals,
– The candidates/employees that will be trained, and
– The ultimate learning outcomes that your trainees will achieve
It is time to start creating. Let the knowledge you collected in the previous steps guide your design and development decisions.
For instance, if your target audience is millennials, you will need video format content that can be delivered to their mobile devices. Similarly, if you are delivering training about a compliance subject, you may want to consider investing in off-the-shelf training content.
Testing
Once you have the first draft of your training curriculum, it is time to test. The most effective way to do it is to do a soft roll out for a small group of employees. Track their progress, their assessment results, and verify the learning outcomes by having them apply their newly learnt skills in real-life scenarios.
With the data that you collect, you should be able to pinpoint potential areas of improvement that can be optimised to deliver satisfactory results.
If you end up making changes, consider another round of testing before the final roll out.
Conclusion
This is just one of the many ways you can go about creating your training curriculum. However, keep in mind that even after the final roll out, it is important to continuously track the effectiveness of your training content to find opportunities of improvements.
What kind of process does your organisation employ for developing training content? Share with us in the comment section below!
