Tuesday, May 14, 2019

With A Professional Developer Instructional Design Curriculum Can Result In Good Courses

By Dennis Fox


All successful companies make sure that their employees are highly skilled and similarly, all successful people know that they need to learn new skills and sharpen their existing ones all the time. Skills are acquired by means of training and that is why most large corporations spend a lot of money on training programs. Training needs to be relevant, however and it must satisfy the current and future needs of both the student and the employer. With a competent developer instructional design curriculum this can be achieved.

Considering the great need for more skilled people and the high cost of training programs, it is surprising that so many large companies simply adopt existing courses instead of determining their own training needs in a scientific manner. Professional course designers are skilled in designing courses that are tailor made for the current and future needs of their clients. In the long run this is much more efficient.

A proper environmental analysis is the first step when designing a course. The designer needs to know what the framework is within which he must do his work. To this end he needs to know what the budget for the development and presentation of the course is. He also needs to know if there are other constraints such as restrictions regarding the length of the course.

Next is a thorough analysis of the intended target group. The profile of the typical student that will undergo the training has a decided influence on many issues such as the delivery method, the setting of entrance requirements, the selection of training resources and many others. The more the designer knows about the target group the more likely he is to produce a course that will achieve results.

Far too many courses are based on existing resources such as books or manuals. Instead, a proper training needs analysis should be performed in order to determine exactly which skills and what knowledge the students need to acquire. Professional course designers use different techniques to determine the training need and this step is perhaps the single most important one when designing a course.

The next step is to refine the course content into measurable objectives. Training objectives need to be exact and they must specify what exactly it is that the student must learn or master, to which standard it must be done and the time limit within it must be done. This is the only way in which students can assess their own progress and in which those delivering the course can know what it is that they must teach.

Despite modern trends to not evaluate students, some form of evaluation is definitely necessary. There is no other way in which to ensure that students have actually mastered the course objectives. If they have not done so, they need either further training or additional tutoring until they master all the objectives. Other aspects such as the course content, the instructional system and the relevance of the course must also be evaluated.

Course designers can play a very important role in helping their clients to spend their training money wisely. They can design courses that will make sure that the actual needs of the company are satisfied. A scientific approach to course development within a systems approach is the only way in which to truly ensure training excellence.




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