Karl Kapp on Instructional Design Today #TK11

My live blogged notes from a session with Karl Kapp at ASTD’s TechKnowledge in San Jose: Instructional Design Today: What We Really Need to Know as Practitioners, Researchers, and Designers.

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Sound instructional design techniques work for the new technology (gadgets, games, etc.)

1) Follow an abbreviated ID process (instructional strategies make it not an information dump)

2) Apply the Keys to Instruction that Changes Behavior

3) Match the right content to the right instructional strategy

Designing performance based instruction

Hierarchy

• Facts
• Concepts
• Rules
• Procedures
• Principles
• Problem solving

(to understand the concept you need to first understand the fact)

FACTS

New information, anything we have to memorize (i.e., acronyms)

We learn facts through elaboration (get additional info about the fact – visual or textual)

Visual images as elaboration – images probably stick longer than the text bullets

Use recall to elaboration “well you already know…”

Organizing facts into logical groupings (chunking) – tables, diagrams, lists, models, mnemonics

The learning rhymes we learned as children that we still remember – powerful tools for recall – have learners come up with their own mnemonic

Drag and drop good for associating facts

Games to teach facts – board game example to teach inventory – the score is the inventory count (learning to keep inventory low).

Creating muscle memory through repetition – so we have information quickly

Word search game – to think about definitions and terms.

Games shouldn’t be your primary mode of learning – quickly get overloaded or your trivialize the content

We recommend facts more when told in a story rather than a bulleted list.

Karl’s blog: accidental learning and power of stories: http://www.kaplaneduneering.com/kappnotes/index.php/2007/05/accidental-learning-and-power-of/

CONCEPTS

At the end of your training, have a really hard scenario – now what would you do, how would you tackle this? (help ensure the transfer when we go back to our desks)

Have congruency in your instruction – if people really die at your hospital, then build that into your scenarios

Show tangible representations of a concept.

Tie learning into strong feelings it’s easier to recall (can do this in virtual worlds – create episodic memories that you can draw upon) – e.g., experience a tidal wave.

RULES

Relationship between concepts

Let people see what happens when you don’t follow the rules – let people fail so they can see the consequences.

PROCEDURES

Do an overview of the whole procedure – then teach the parts and have them put it all together.

Think performance supports instead of instruction.

**** Sadly, I had to leave, but Karl’s already got his slides up!

Instructional Design Today: What We Really Need to Know as Practitioners, Researchers, and Designers

View more presentations from Karl Kapp.