Category: Instructional Design

Game Design Principles for Your Course, Round 2

This week, I’ll continue our series on lessons that can be learned from game design and applied to the world of instructional design. We’ll keep exploring Mark Rosewater’s “10 Things Every Game Needs” for our comparison.

In my last post, I outlined how goals and rules clearly lay out the learner’s expectations to ensure they understand the structure and outcomes of the course. Today, we’ll focus on three design elements to retain and increase learner engagement throughout your course. I’ll also include a couple of practical tips for implementing these features in your course.

Let’s get started. Continue reading “Game Design Principles for Your Course, Round 2”

Motivation in Education: Satisfaction

Instructor and Teacher Relationship
via University of Nottingham flickr

Throughout this series, we’ve explored the four components of Keller’s ARCS Model for Motivation: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction.

In my last post, I discussed how a teacher can help a student become more motivated by boosting his or her confidence.

Today we will look at the final component of Keller’s ARCS Model for Motivation and how students’ motivation is increased and maintained through satisfaction.

Continue reading “Motivation in Education: Satisfaction”

A Year’s End Review

When our team started Model eLearning in January, we wanted to explore and share the eLearning theories, trends, and tools that excite us. One of the top instructional design skills is Googler—so we wanted to contribute to that growing body of knowledge and help the eLearning community.

Over the past year, we’ve shared our team’s practical tips for instructional designers (ID), subject matter experts (SME), and instructors. Now—in a time-honored December blog tradition—let’s review some of our favorite posts of 2017. Continue reading “A Year’s End Review”

Engage your Learners with Interactive Video

“In addition to enhancing learning, video can also reduce training time. It’s easier and takes less time to watch a well-made video than it does to read through pages of dense text or complicated diagrams to grasp a concept.”

Andy Cole (Via Brainshark; originally included in The Benefits of Video in eLearning)

In my last post, we explored some benefits of using scenarios in eLearning. Today, we will examine the value of learning with interactive videos using PlayPosit. Continue reading “Engage your Learners with Interactive Video”

Apply Game Design Principles to Your Courses

Earlier, you heard from Michelle about the lessons she took from the world of broadcasting and applied to Instructional Design. Today, we’re going to discuss lessons that can be learned from a field adjacent to Instructional Design—game design.

While significant research surrounds adding gamification elements to eLearning courses, implementing it means devoting a large amount of resources. What then, can we learn if we look at it from the flip side? What fundamental game design principles translate to Instructional Design? Continue reading “Apply Game Design Principles to Your Courses”

Motivation in Education: Confidence

Throughout this series, we’ve explored the four components of Keller’s ARCS Model for Motivation: attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction.

In my last post, I discussed practical ways to motivate your students by making your course content relevant to them in and outside of the classroom.

Today we will look at ways you can motivate your students by boosting their confidence.

Continue reading “Motivation in Education: Confidence”

Who is Your Audience?

Instructional designers agree on one fundamental concept of course design: you must know your audience. This article focuses on an emerging audience and proposes a not-so-new strategy for designing eLearning that works for it. Continue reading “Who is Your Audience?”

Motivation in Education: Relevance

Throughout this series, we’ve explored Keller’s ARCS Model for Motivation, which includes attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction—four components used in successful face-to-face, online, and blended learning environments.

In my last post, I shared different strategies to motivate students through gaining and maintaining their attention.

Today we’ll look at practical ways you can motivate your students through course content that’s relevant to them in and outside of the classroom. Continue reading “Motivation in Education: Relevance”

Get students fired up with scenario-based eLearning

 

Want to get students fired up about learning? Then present a problem and ask them for a solution. Scenario-based instruction will grab your student’s attention and keep them engaged in the learning experience. In this post, I will give some definitions of scenario-based learning, identify some of the benefits it offers, and explain when to use it in your online course. Continue reading “Get students fired up with scenario-based eLearning”

Improve Your Course Content: Active Voice

Content is difficult to read on a screen. If you want students to engage with your online course, you need to improve the cognitive load. The best practices used for writing for the web include active voice, positive tone, the inverted pyramid, chunking text, bullet and number lists, and descriptive headings. In this post, we’ll examine how to improve the readability of your course using active voice. Continue reading “Improve Your Course Content: Active Voice”