This week, we'll:
This week our goal is for you to identify an authentic training need in your organization. Evaluate training courses provided by your employer or talk to your coworkers or management to find potential knowledge or performance gaps. Is there a problem with existing training? Are changes occuring in your organization that might provide opportunities to design new training? For example, has your company acquired new software or hardware which is not being used productively because relatively few people know how? Or perhaps you are particularly skilled in something and would like to design a short workshop or manual to teach this skill to others in your organization who need it.
Once you have identified a training opportunity in your organization, it's time to write an instructional goal. The goal statement should be fairly broad, since it represents the learning goal for your entire instructional unit. Make sure to include a verb describing what learners should know or be able to do at the end of the instruction.
I suggest you follow the procedure for clarifying "fuzzy" goals, as described in your text (see especially p. 31). However, don't spend too much time on it at this point. Instructional design, although presented in a linear fashion in your text, is really an iterative process. You may find that later, once you have conducted an instructional analysis, you will go back and refine your instructional goal. At this point we are just trying to identify a topic and draft an overall goal.
Try the practice exercises on p. 31-32. Look at the answers if needed.
Then, based on the guidelines in Chapter 2, write a draft instructional goal statement that describes the learners, what these learners will be able to do in the performance context, the performance context itself, and the tools that will be available. The needs assessment and goal statement are the first two elements of assignment 2.
The goal statement only is due in your folder in Google Drive before class on Monday and is only a draft for discussion purposes. Just create a document and write your topic and goal statement so that we can discuss them in class.
Before class on Monday, review this template on instructional goals. I'd like for you to begin thinking about your potential topic for your final project and be able to brainstorm answers to the prompts in this template in class on Monday. You do not have to complete this template or create a document based upon it -- we will use it in class on Monday night.
Agenda:
Please email me with any questions.
This week we'll mostly focus on instructional goals, but in class we'll also introduce the idea of needs assessment.
Our goal is to prepare you for beginning Assignment Two. Please complete the Suggested Reading, but keep in mind it is suggested, not completely required.