The Landscape
As corporations take advantage of the technology, what is increasingly overlooked is the application of learning theories to the content being created. When consuming the training content, the questions that I ask are:
- Does the content meet the learning objectives of the target audience?
- Is the content truly consumable and learnable by the target audience?
- Is the content presented in the most efficient way possible for accelerated mastery by the target audience?
In many cases, my answer to these questions is ‘not really’. Much of what is referred to as training that is out there today, particularly video-based content, is largely animated how-to guides. They are useful for quick results when a viewer needs how-to guidance on solving an immediate problem, but they are not designed for learners to have long term recollection or application of the new information when they need it. Although this type of outcome is acceptable for a consumer, when your manager expects you to perform new tasks after taking a training course, the course needs to do more than show you how a task is performed.
Taking a step back and designing training products with the focus on the target audience and what and how they need to learn would greatly benefit their use of the content created.
Re-Introducing Curriculum Planning
Curriculum planning is all about understanding the target audience before designing or creating the training product. It focuses on capturing the performance improvement goals for target audiences that must uplevel their skills/knowledge or learn new skills or knowledge for the purposes of performing their job tasks.
An audience-centric curriculum planning report includes the following information:
- The initiative or customer or organizational changes that require training support
- The knowledge and skills gaps that need to be addressed
- Learning-theory based training outlines organized in a curriculum format
- Resources needed for training courses, for example lab equipment
- The training delivery modalities
- Metrics strategy for evaluating the adoption and success of the training offerings
When is Curriculum Planning Used?
Typically, curriculum planning is performed when there is a request or perceived need for training. Requests can range from new product training to job role training. For example, in an IT support group, If the support team is required to deploy one or more new technologies or the group has been reorganized in a way that staff must perform new tasks, training on the new job tasks would be needed.
When curriculum planning is used successfully, the resulting report is the source for creating the plans for developing enablement courses or entire programs that effectively expedite the acquisition of needed skills and knowledge by the target audiences.
Call to Action
Creating effective training and enablement offerings means going beyond being a subject matter expert on the topic to be covered. Understanding the precise needs of the target audience as well as learning theories, will help you create training that will enable your audience master what they learn sooner, more accurately and with confidence.