Online learning can conjure some strong love-hate emotions in learners everywhere. Those who are leery of online courses have likely been burned by a bad course experience or burned out trying to create a great course experience for learners of their own. At CourseArc, we are lovers of all things online learning and we have noticed some common traits amongst our team members and the instructional designers working for many of our clients. These folks LOVE online learning and you can too by learning and adopting the 5 Love Languages of the Instructional Designer.
5 Love Languages of the Instructional Designer
Love Language No. 1: Proven Processes and Tools—Dangle some cold hard data out there and an instructional designer is sure to take notice. These dedicated creators start with a strong foundation every time by using proven methods and organizational structures as the backbone of their work. They don’t guess at what works, they look at the facts and execute.
Love Language No. 2: Theories—If you want to get an instructional designer’s heart racing, just casually mention Bloom’s Taxonomy or Gagne’s Nine Events of Instruction in conversation. These theories help inform the plan for the best online courses available and designers swear by them when creating intentional outlines for courses.
Love Language No. 3: Users—If you ever look over at your instructional designer friend and she is gazing off into the distance with a smile, you can bet she has the End User on her mind. Some say it borders on obsession, but it really comes down to empathy and a deep desire to get it right for their learners and facilitators. The best designers understand how to put themselves in the User’s shoes and design the optimal experience—from mobile user interface to accessibility, they think of every detail.
Love Language No. 4: Optimization—Through countless hours of creating, designers become savvy about guides, consistency, scalability, and organization. They do not create the perfect course to lose it or completely re-do it next year. Leveraging boilerplate, storyboarding, templating, and filing efficiently allow the best designers to spend their time adding value to their consistent course shells. Once they have a winner, they know how to catalog it and easily locate it for future deployment, sharing, or recycling.
Love Language No. 5: Perfection—The perfect online course may never exist, but instructional designers will not stop trying to get there. They know how to elicit valuable and actionable feedback from their end users. Constantly striving to level up their courses with tools like Kirkpatrick’s Four Levels of Training Evaluation, they want to know how learners feel about the experience so they can inch ever closer to perfection, all in the name of online learners everywhere.
Learning to Love
So whether you are an instructional designer looking to fall back in love with online learning or you just want to impress that special designer in your life, the 5 Love Languages of the Instructional Designer are sure to fill your cup and create a lasting love for online course creation that just gets better with age. Even better, give yourself or your colleague the gift of learning with this Instructional Design course from CourseArc.
CourseArc was built as a tool and team to support organizations as they build online content. Check out our resource site to see how we can help your team. Check back to our blog and social media feeds for additional resources and case studies on how our clients are using CourseArc to move their classrooms online.
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