What turns your best dress into a showstopper? Accessories. And what turns your online course content into dazzlingly useful
learning content? Learning
Activities. What is a Learning
Activity? In e-learning content
development, we use all forms of questions for test and quizzes:
- Multiple correct, which presents a number of choices as answers to a particular question. There may be more than one answer to this question. The students chooses all answers that are correct.
- Single correct, which presents multiple choices as answers to a particular questions. One answer of the possible choices is correct.
- Item matching, in which there is one column of possible answers that relate to another column of questions. Item matching is commonly used for matching the correct term to the definition.
- Fill-in-the-blank, in which the students enters the correct word or words that complete a sentence.
- True/false, in which the student answers whether a statement is true or false.
- Short answer, in which the student enters a one to two sentence answer to a question.
- Essay, in which the student responds to a question with a page (or more) long response.
All of these question types are useful for testing knowledge
gained from taking a course, as well as testing the level of knowledge prior to
a course. In addition, such questions
are useful in the course itself as learning checks. The learning check enables the student to determine whether he
understands the material. Most
companies consider these questions to be adequate learning activities. However, learning activities can be much
more. Learning activities that are simulations can involve the student and give
him a safe environment in which to practice skills gained through the course. .
Learning Activities are interactive activities that help to
explain concepts and involve the student with hands-on learning. This may include all forms of drag and drop
questions (one to one correlation, many to one correlation) as well as
interactive ordering of graphics or text, and finally, simulations.
An IDC article and
survey, Technology-Based Simulations: Cloning the Work Environment for More
Effective Learning, June 2004 by Michael Brennan, states, "By 2008 the use of simulations
will quadruple.... Simulations provide a parallel universe in which employees
hone their skills... Innovative companies have realized this, and others will
follow."
Simulations are currently the most expensive learning
activity. Simulations must be
individually designed and programmed. For example, suppose you have a sales course in which you are testing
the sales student’s retention of the message that the company wishes to deliver
to its customers. You could do a
question workshop: several questions that give situations requiring an action
in multiple correct or single correct formats. Another, more entertaining, method would be to have the sales person run
through a scenario in which he indicates what he would do to sell his product. The learning activity indicates whether the
customer would buy this product based on those actions. This feedback could be indicated by a graph
indicating customer readiness to buy. It could also be complimented by video, in which the customer appears
aggravated when the sales person gives his message incorrectly and pleased when
the sales person gives his message correctly.
Online courses are taken privately and at the student’s
convenience. If the student requires
several attempts with a particular scenario, praise the student for continued
effort and eventual competency.
Adding humor to simulations and learning activities is
essential yet can be controversial. As
the simulation developer or content developer, you do not want to add any humor
that could be perceived as offensive, sexist or worse, unfunny. To extend our sales example, when the sales
person is unsuccessful at selling his product in the learning activity, you
would not want your customer video or simple animation of the customer to
offend the sales person. Yet you want
him to laugh and try again. Perhaps the
customer morosely shaking his head and leaving the room, with text indicating
how the sales call went dreadfully south would be acceptable and could be done
in a humorous fashion. You would not
want this animation to be disturbing – the customer should not shake his fist
and yell for a restraining order against the sales person, for example.
In the past, I participated in designing a simulation of
patient anesthesia. The computer
program consisted of a patient on the operating room table and two dials that
the student could turn. One dial
administered oxygen, the other dial administered anesthetic. The patient’s parameters could change
(height, weight, age). As the student
administered the anesthesia, a graph showed the patient’s stats. If you administered too much anesthesia the
patient would die! It was a great
simulation, but scary. The death knell
of the patient was accompanied by funeral music. . Ouch!
On the other hand, sometimes we encounter simulations and
learning activities that add nothing to the content or the course. They are superfluous, added to maintain
interest. You must be very careful in
these instances. If you want to add
something to maintain interest, it should still be useful and explore some
aspect of the topic. A Flash movie of
interesting fractals may be colorful and fun - useless in a course that is not
about fractals, art or Flash. For
example, suppose you are teaching contractual document details. You can still
relate the content of the course to a learning activity in which the student
must put the correct elements from a list into three different types of
contracts. As dry as you may think detailing
the elements of a contract might be, if you add audio that indicates whether
the addition was right or wrong, you can keep your student’s interest. “Wrong!” can be contrasted with “Oh, not
that element, it does not belong” said in a beautiful feminine voice. The second response can add a smile and
cause the student to remember how the contractual elements are added to a
contract. A booming male voice that
states, “You sir, are correct!” can bring that same acknowledgement.
In conclusion, questions and quizzes while useful are not
the end of interactivity. We need to
provide the means for simulations inside online courses to provide the hands on
learning that students need. Through
clever activities that allow seeing the consequences of your actions on the
simulation model, we can provide activities that enable retention of material
and practice. If these activities lead
the student to greater understanding, we have provided not only an entertaining
activity but also great value for our online courses.
Dana Fine
Senior Instructional Designer
SyberWorks
