Switching your career is never easy. It brings a basket full of challenges, confusion, and nervousness. But sometimes, taking a new career path can also be one of the most exciting and rewarding things in life. Are you a teacher who is finally ready to pursue a new career? Do you want to quit teaching and not take up something entirely new? If your answer is yes, then instructional design is definitely a career to explore. According to the Association for Talent Development (ATD), “instructional design is the creation of learning experiences and materials in such a way that results in the acquisition and application of knowledge and skills.” This is something teachers do every day, isn’t it? Instructional design enables you to stay rooted in your education-based background while experiencing something new at the same time. So, you won’t have to face the frustration of starting over in a completely unfamiliar career. Sounds amazing, right? So, how can you transition from … [Read more...] about How to Have a Successful Transition from Teaching to Instructional Design?
How to become an instructional designer
Is Instructional Design a Good Career for Teachers?
It is not a secret that being a teacher is no easy feat. Teaching hundreds of learners, preparing thousands of lesson plans and presentations, staying late to prepare for the next day, and evaluating multiple assignments with a smile on your face is difficult. And it sometimes gets monotonous too. Thus, many teachers eventually begin looking for a new career. Today, with the advancement of technology and the development of society as a whole, job opportunities have grown significantly, which provides a wide variety of new jobs to choose from. One popular and ever-growing career option that many teachers are gravitating towards these days is instructional design. The simple reason for this is that it’s a rewarding and lucrative career option right up the alley for most teachers. This article will walk you through the ins and outs of instructional design and what it entails. We will also talk about the benefits of instructional design and why it is a good career option for … [Read more...] about Is Instructional Design a Good Career for Teachers?
How to Focus On “Backward Design” for Creating Online Courses
As course creators, we often design from the top down. We think we know exactly what our audience needs, and in turn, shape our course content around this framework. On the other hand, if we rely on "backward design" (where the content is learner-focused), our eLearning will achieve our objectives better and resonate with our audience. Here's how to stay focused on the learner and implement a backward design in eLearning. Ask the Right Question What do they need to know to be successful? A simple question, but let's break it down a bit. Note the qualifier "successful". This is extremely important. It's easy to be so close to your content that you lose sight of what your learner's goals actually are. I've taken many online courses that have completely failed at delivering the content needed to accomplish my goals. Instead, the designer created a course they wanted - not a course that the learner needed. To ensure you're meeting the need vs. the want, you have to look at things … [Read more...] about How to Focus On “Backward Design” for Creating Online Courses
7 Interesting And Promising Trends To Watch In 2021
What a year 2020 has been, especially for those of us involved in L&D, and more specifically with eLearning! The rise in work from home (WFH) prompted employers to focus more on remote training and development. From onboarding and induction training to ongoing certification and compliance, training teams across all industries have scrambled to adapt to the challenge of delivering content via eLearning. 7 eLearning Trends And Predictions For 2021 As the global training industry evolves to blend into the new reality of distance learning, what’s in store for us in 2021? Well, based on what we’ve already seen in 2020, here are some eLearning trends that we are likely to encounter in 2021: 1. More Emphasis On Train-The-Trainer Programs Corporate workforce capability-building is the cornerstone for global competitiveness. According to renowned management consulting firm McKinsey, as the global pandemic hit, nearly 50% of corporate in-person training in North America came to a halt. … [Read more...] about 7 Interesting And Promising Trends To Watch In 2021
5 Tips on Editing Text for Instructional Design
There's a good chance that text is the bulk of your online learning content. Since the text is the biggest player in most eLearning courses, it’s essential to present it in the best way possible to optimize the instructional design. Here are 5 Tips to edit and present textual content for your online courses! 1. Line Length The optimal line length should be around 60 characters for the best reading experience. Too short, and the reader must constantly scan back and forth quickly, which can be quite frustrating and cause eye strain in bigger chunks of content. Too long, and you risk losing the reader's focus as they try to digest a lengthy string of text. Of course, you don't have to do a character count on each line, but be aware of this guideline to get a feel for what 60 characters of text actually look like when you preview your content. You can play with margins, text boxes, and design elements to shorten/lengthen this. 2. Paragraphs Justified blocks of … [Read more...] about 5 Tips on Editing Text for Instructional Design
4 Quick Tips – How To Incorporate Social Learning In eLearning
While we may have not put a name to it growing up, we began social learning at the earliest of ages by mimicking adults, playing on a team, and learning from our parents and family. Social Learning is simply learning with and from others. If you’re having trouble figuring out effective ways to incorporate social learning into your eLearning curriculum, think about the techniques, interactions, and behaviors that would be observed in a live classroom and emulate those. Here are four ways that you can initiate or ramp up social learning immediately! #1 Gamification Try incorporating games among peers to promote social learning. Humans, by nature, love to compete! This reinforces rewards for positive behavior and can really hook your learners into engaging with both the content and other “players”. Build these elements directly into your course content, and create leaderboards with daily/weekly rewards for the … [Read more...] about 4 Quick Tips – How To Incorporate Social Learning In eLearning
