June 15, 2004

WHO IS YOUR AUDIENCE?

audience.gif Online courses can be a lonely experience for the learner... particularly in largely self-instructional courses.

Even in facilitated courses and courses that contain group discussion, the learner can feel isolated from others, confused by the interface or content, and not "connected" to the course experience.

One of the instructional designer's key roles is as the learner's advocate during the course design process, determining how learners will best navigate through the various media in the course and focusing on creating a satisfying learning experience for each individual learner.

To do this, the designer must have a clear understanding of who their audience is, how they learn, and what they want to achieve through the course experience.

At minimum, the designer needs to be able to answer the following questions at the very earliest stages of course development:

  • What knowledge and aptitudes do learners already have? What life experiences do adult learners bring to the course?
  • What is the organization of learners' knowledge?
  • How will this course add to learners' knowledge of the subject?
  • How will learners apply this learning in their real-world context?
  • What barriers may they face in an online environment?
  • What are the attitudes, motivations, lifestages, and interests that might influence learning?
Posted by jotz at June 15, 2004 12:25 AM
Comments

Joanne,

Thanks for your explanation and the June 17 blog. The two combined to help me understand the position brief better.

I e-mailed the brief to you. I think you will find that your answer goes a long way to explain the need for this position.

Chris Davis

Posted by: chris davis at June 18, 2004 12:47 PM

Thanks for your comment, Chris.

Without seeing the job description, it's hard for me to say how this differs from what we've been talking about in course materials, but keep in mind that we're really only focusing on the ID's role in the creation of online course content. There are a variety of specialties and sub-specialties in the field of ID that we're not really talking about in this course.

"Competency Integration" is a term sometimes seen in competency-based training to describe contextualized training that seeks to meet a number of critical job competencies within a single training intervention.

Every job requires a set of critical competencies that are interrelated. In this learning approach, the idea is that it's not enough to teach these skills in isolation - for example, by having sales associates attend separate classes on computer training, interpersonal skills, product information, resource management, etc. - since these separate classes don't teach the associate how to perform all these complex tasks within a real-world context.

Competency integration is about teaching these skills in a contextualized way - such as through simulations, problem-based or case-based learning, just-in-time learning, etc. - and about measuring achievement of these competencies through actual performance rather than through testing of the individual skills out of context.

The argument is that an individual's achievement of a skills as measured in isolation during course testing is not an indication of how that individual will perform the skill on the job.

Many academic institutions are now adopting the concept of specifying core competencies for their academic programs - and often these relate to skills such as library research skills, writing skills, and computer skills that are an important part of doing academic work.

My guess would be that the school is attempting to have faculty integrate the attainment of these skills into their academic programs within each discipline, but it's also possible that they're talking about competency integration as a part of their own staff and faculty professional development (internal training) program ... in fact, given the scant resources of most academic institutions, it's quite likely that the ID they're looking for will be responsible for doing both!

Posted by: Joanne at June 18, 2004 02:46 AM

I saw a position brief for an Instructional Designer for Competency Integration. The role was different than how it is being described in this context.

Why would a school of higher education need a competency team? It seemed to me that the focus was on the faculty and performance of the school

What exactly is competency integration?

Posted by: chris davis at June 17, 2004 04:22 PM