Nuts and Bolts: Instructional Design 101—Be a Learner

In my line of work there’s a lot of conversation aboutinstructional design and common design flaws, and I spend a lot of timeevaluating eLearning courses and products. I find it helps my perspectiveimmensely when I set out to learn something new for myself, the more unrelatedto work, the better.

I’m presently helping to plan an event for people primarilyinvolved in workplace learning, innovation, and technology. We were talkingabout maker sessions, and I joked that we should have a ukulele orchestra. Thisgot me thinking that playing the ukulele might be fun. I rummaged around and foundthe souvenir uke my mother bought on a trip to Hawaii when I was 9, which asfar as I know was never even tuned.

Now, I’m a guitar player—giving music lessons is what firstled me to the training business—so I wasn’t starting from scratch. I know howto tune a stringed instrument, form chords, pick out a melody, and strum, evenif my experience has been with something with six strings, different chords,and somewhat different tuning. I went in with a pretty good idea of what Ineeded to learn and what I didn’t.

So I turned to YouTube.

The learnerexperience

There are hundreds of videos on learning to play ukulele andparticular songs on the ukulele, and not surprisingly—just like eLearningcourses—they are all over the place in terms of content and intent and quality.Most were made by musicians at home who want to share, some made by peopleoffering lessons at cost, a few selling a product like videos or books.

The experience was like a crash “ID 101” course, withshining examples of good, bad, better, and awful. Here are some takeaways:

1. Useeffective, clear titles. Help people decide what’s right for them. Trustthat they often know what that is.
2. Get onwith it already (aka: Shut up and play). Some of the video creators wenton… and on… about ukes, and wood, and tuning, and what kind of chair they weresitting in, and what a guitar store in your town might have if you went there …before finally getting to the lesson proper. Lucky for me, YouTube has ascrubber bar. If the video is titled “How to Play ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’” thenteach that. Put the setup and the background and asides somewhere else like an intromodule, or divide the lesson into Parts 1 and 2. Recognize that someone wantingto learn “Bohemian Rhapsody” probably already knows how to tune the thinganyway. Also: Recognize when you’re trying to cover too much in one bite.
3. Know youraudience. Find out what most of them already know. Look over what alreadyexists and don’t replicate that needlessly. Decide who you are pitching to: Areyou trying to help the novice or the one like me, who has some background or priortraining with the topic? Or the advanced player? (Folk musician Marcy Marxeroffers a series of lessons called “Ukulele for Guitar Players.” There’s an example of knowing youraudience.)
4. Help thelearner keep up. Break the song into parts. Play it once at half-speedbefore moving to full speed.
5. Draw apicture. It was amazing to see how many people would just talk on and onabout things begging to be shown as images, like how to form chords: “Okay, putyour index finger on the first string third fret, and then put your pinkie onthe third string fourth fret…” There are several tools that will let you addchord diagrams and other notation to videos so you can follow along as thetutor plays (and see how she or he is placing fingers). One did home-drawnchord diagrams on paper and held them up to the camera. One drew the chords ona whiteboard, then filmed himself playing in front of it. (Note: Failing torecognize that the right picture is in fact worth a thousand words happens intraining and eLearning. All. The. Time.)
6. Before youstart teaching: Play the song. There are lots of ways of playing “Ain’tMisbehavin’” in several different keys. Two videos showed more or less what Iwanted and felt I could do, with chords easy enough for me to play as a ukebeginner. Many videos don’t begin with showing the final product or an exampleof the final performance, so I had to skip to the end to see if the version ofthe song being taught was even the one I wanted to learn.
7. Providefollow-up support. The best “how to play this song” videos offered a linkto the written music, the chord diagrams, or the tutorial for an advancedversion.
8. Leave theferrets out. Many videos are shot in a living room or kitchen, and aninordinate number had cats and, in one case, a ferret, frolicking in thebackground. It was mesmerizing, and a delightful distraction from the lesson. Andit reminded me a lot of clicky-clicky-bling-bling flashing buttons andirrelevant art and distractors you see in eLearning courses.

What didn’t matter?I remember the lessons that were the most helpful, not the ones that wereprettiest or had the highest production value. I remember learning quickly fromthe tutor who had clearly rehearsed and planned out structure and order, anddidn’t keep saying, “Oh, wait, I forgot to show you this thing…” I rememberthat the diagrams on a whiteboard were more helpful than the ones done with expensivesoftware showing real-time animated musical notation.

Be a learner

So: To learn more about ID, be a learner. Learn something farout of your usual area. Go see how 20 other people designed for that topic. You’llfind some are naturally better teachers than others. Take lessons from them aboutwhat’s best. Note how they make it happen effectively online. Become moremindful of how you learn: what works for you, and how quickly, and how mucheffort and time you are willing to put into learning.

And let me know if you take up the ukulele. Wecan start a Google Hangout band.