List Learner Activities
Development begins with specifying the learning activities and strategies that will best assist in the learning process. The main instructional setting and media were chosen in the analysis phase. In this phase, the learning strategies and supporting media that will assist the learners in mastering the objectives will be chosen.
Developing Activities
When developing and selecting activities it often helps to use a series of If/Then statements;
Goal: If we want this outcome _____, then the employees will need to perform in this manner _____ (Performance). If we want them to perform like this, then they need to learn these skills _____ (Skills). If we want them to learn these skills, then they need to know this information _____ (Knowledge).
In addition, think beyond the classroom:
- Onramping: What do they nead to learn before the class?
- Create Learning Platform
- On-the-Job Application: What do they need after the class?
Some prefer to design and develop the learning activities using a more visual method:
Defining Learning
To select the proper activities, it helps to know what learning is and what activities enhance a particular form of learning.
Learning has been defined as a relatively permanent change in behavioral potentiality that occurs as a result of reinforced practice (Kimble, 1961). The following elaborates on this basic definition:
- Learning is indexed by a change in behavior, which must be translated into observable behavior.
- After learning, learners are capable of performing something that they could not do before the learning experience.
- This change is relatively permanent, it is neither transitory nor fixed.
- The change in behavior need not occur immediately following the learning experience. Although there may be a potential to act differently, this potential may not be translated into a new behavior immediately.
- The change in behavior results from experience or practice.
- The experience or practice must be reinforced.
Learning has also be defined as "the process by which people acquire new skills or knowledge for the purpose of enhancing performance" (Rosenberg, 2001).
Learning a subject seems to involve three almost simultaneous processes:
- There is acquisition of new information. Often the information runs counter to or is a replacement for what the learner had previously known.
- Learning may be called a "transformation" — the process of manipulating knowledge to make it fit new tasks. Transformation comprises the ways we deal with information in order to go beyond it.
- Some type of evaluation takes place by the learner in order to check whether the information and skills are adequate for the task.
Some describe learning as being "social." The physicist Freeman Dyson wrote that when writing, he closes the door, but when doing science, he leaves it open, “up to a point you welcome being interrupted because it is only by interacting with other people that you get anything interesting done.” He wrote two papers that were published in Physical Review that brought together Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger's theories of quantum mechanics. After Dyson's papers, Feynman and Schwinger's ideas became understandable and thus led to the two being awarded the Noble prize in physics. There is no doubt in most minds that the two would never have been awarded the prize if it was not for Dyson being able to explain their ideas.
Thus, you have Freeman Dyson "social" learning from Richard Feynman and Julian Schwinger. However, Feynman was such a genius that he learned from whenever he came across information, such as books and lectures. Einstein is another example — people learned a lot from being around him, yet he learned from what ever was available.
In addition, there is more than one type of learning. A committee of colleges and universities studied learning behaviors and broke learning into three main domains or Taxonomies (Krathwohl, at. el., 1964). Knowing the type of knowledge, skill, or attitude that is discussed in the taxonomy will assist you in determining the instructional strategy.
References
Kimble, G.A. (1961). Hilgard and Marquis' Conditioning and Learning (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.
Rosenberg, Marc (2001). E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Krathwohl, David R., Bengamin S. Bloom, and Bertram B. Mesia (1964). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives (two vols: The Affective Domain & The Cognitive Domain). New York. David McKay.
Next Steps
Read Media, Strategies, & Methods for more help in choosing activities.
Go to the next section: Choose Delivery System
Return to the Table of Contents