Before You Begin: Design Considerations

As a facilitator, you will be handicapped from the start if the original course design isn’t effective. Depending on the situation, enhancing the design before you start can be an effective option. You must review the needs assessment findings, check the learning objectives, and make sure that the learning activities and assessment/measurement methods align with the learning objectives.

Needs Assessment Findings

Your course designer, facilitator guide, course materials, and your client should provide you with needs assessment information regarding the learners’ backgrounds, skill levels, learning styles, comfort with learning activities, work environments, and attitudes toward the learning experience. Knowing the audience profile will enhance your facilitation to a great extent and enable you to customize your facilitation to the learners’ characteristics and needs.

Noted

You’ll notice the word client used frequently throughout this book. In this context, your client is defined as “the person who benefits from the increased job performance of your learners.” Usually, the client is the learners’ manager(s).

Learning Objectives

Learning objectives and outcomes should be specified and should be stated in observable, measurable terms. With specific and measurable learning objectives, you will always have in mind where you are “driving” the learning and what the learners must be able to do when your course is complete and they are back on their jobs.

The course content should be segmented appropriately for learning effectiveness (not too much content at one time without practice and application). The must-know content should be clearly identified in the participant materials and handouts for your benefit as well as the learners’.

Activities and Assessments

Learning activities and assessment/measurement methods should align with the learning objectives they represent. In this way, the course design ensures that your learners’ experiences will result in the learning that is required and increase the probability of their transferring the skills back to their jobs.

The design should also encompass a variety of types of learning activities and a varied pace. Learning activity sequence should be varied as well: The principle is that activities must appeal to all learning styles and knowledge/skill levels at some point or another in the learning experience. In addition, the type of knowledge or skills assessment and measurement should align with the stated learning objectives.

Noted

Effective learning is the result of both effective design and facilitation, and it is acknowledged that the line dividing the two areas of expertise is not a clear-cut delineation. Effective design supports effective facilitation, and there will be times when that dividing line is pushed a bit to discuss or acknowledge the design implications of a particular area of facilitation. This book is not intended to teach you how to design (or redesign) training, although that is the focus of another title in this series: Training Design Basics (Carliner, 2003).